Bloomberg: Ethereum ETF issuers race to lower fees as battle for supremacy intensifies

By Isabelle Lee, Vildana Hajric, Bloomberg; Compiled by Deng Tong, Golden Finance

The battle for assets in potential Ethereum ETFs has already begun, even though the funds haven’t launched yet.

Issuers including BlackRock, Fidelity, Invesco and Bitwise filed documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday outlining how much they will charge for their respective Ethereum ETFs, which will directly hold the second-largest cryptocurrency. The filings anticipate the funds will debut next week; the companies are still awaiting final approval from regulators.

BlackRock said it will charge a 0.25% fee for its yet-to-launch product, though it will waive the fee in the first 12 months or $2.5 billion in assets. Fidelity said it will also charge a 0.25% fee, though it will also waive that fee by the end of the year. The company is not imposing limits on assets. Crypto-native firms 21Shares and Bitwise are asking for fees of 0.21% and 0.2%, respectively, with additional fees tacked on.

All told, the proposed fees range from 0.19% proposed by Franklin to 2.5% proposed by Grayscale, which is considering converting an existing fund into an ethereum ETF while also potentially launching another version with a lower expense ratio.

“Seven of the 10 new ETFs are offering fee waivers, with some even waiving fees entirely for six to 10 months,” said James Seyffart, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “That suggests these issuers are expecting competition to be intense — it’s going to be a battle.”

Many of the issuers in the ethereum race have already gone through a similar ordeal with their bitcoin funds launched earlier this year, Seyffart added. Data compiled by Bloomberg show that these ETFs attracted widespread attention when they debuted in January, receiving a total of $16.5 billion in net inflows. BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF, which has the ticker IBIT and currently has about $21 billion in assets, has performed well.