BlackRock (BLK) and ARK 21Shares both lowered the fees for their proposed exchange-traded funds (ETFs), joining other competitors who made reduction announcements yesterday, as the cryptocurrency sector anticipates that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will approve a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) as early as today.
In a fresh S-1 filing on Wednesday, BlackRock disclosed that it will levy a 25 basis point fee on net asset value. On Monday, the company had disclosed a 30 basis point fee. For the first twelve months following listing, the massive asset-management company is providing a promotional rate of 12 basis points on the first $5 billion. One hundredth of a percentage point is called a basis point.
ARK 21Shares claimed it would charge 0.25%, but later lowered the cost by 4 basis points to 0.21%. For the first six months or the first $1 billion in assets, whichever comes first, the firms are waiving the cost in full.
Rivals Bitwise and Valkyrie, which revealed lower costs yesterday following an initial round of postings on Monday, are the ones who followed the reductions on Wednesday. Bitwise’s cost is still the lowest despite the reductions made today. In Tuesday’s round, the cryptocurrency-native fund manager reduced its initial fee from 0.24% to 0.20%. The current fees for Valkyrie are 0.49%, WisdomTree is 0.3%, and Fidelity is 0.25%. The fees that Galaxy and Invesco intended to charge were lowered to 0.39%.
It is anticipated that the SEC would approve many ETFs concurrently, which means that various providers will compete for market share, with fee structure serving as a primary weapon.