According to a recent CNBC report, during the annual World Economic Forum event in Davos, the boss of Grayscale Michael Sonnenshein spoke about the future of spot Bitcoin ETFs that have been approved recently and also touched on the issue of the high fees imposed by Grayscale.
He elaborated on why the company has been offering 1.5% fees, while the other issuers of spot-based Bitcoin exchange-traded products are keeping their fees under 0.5%.
🔸 Grayscale CEO says most of the 11 approved bitcoin ETFs won’t survive, defends highest fees in industry
Grayscale Investments CEO Michael Sonnenshein told CNBC that most of the approved bitcoin exchange-traded funds won’t survive, while defending the highest fees in the…
— *Walter Bloomberg (@DeItaone) January 19, 2024
Grayscale’s chief explains company’s high Bitcoin ETF fees
Currently, the Bitcoin Trust ETF offered by Grayscale is the biggest in the world since it boasts more than $25 billion worth of assets under its management.
When the Securities and Exchange Commission issued approval to eleven spot Bitcoin ETFs coming from different issuers, many of them, including BlackRock, Fidelity and VanEck, started charging zero or close to zero fees for a certain amount of time after the product’s launch.
The majority of Bitcoin ETF issuing firms keep the fees at 0.2%-0.4%. But not Grayscale – for their Bitcoin ETF Trust the company charges a massive 1.5% management fee.
Sonnenshein stated that Grayscale has a massive track record of ten years and is the largest Bitcoin fund. Since the other issuers did not manage Bitcoin ETFs before, they are trying to attract new customers by lowering their fees significantly. As for Grayscale, per Sonnenshein, their long track record proves their long-term commitment to Bitcoin.
Not all of the approved ETFs will survive, CEO believes
Sonnenshein also stated that he believes that only just two or three spot Bitcoin ETF products will be able to survive in the long run on the market and the others will be pushed out of the market eventually.
Still, over the past week, Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust has seen an astounding outflow of approximately $2.2 billion as the investors have been withdrawing their Bitcoin using the “window”, while the time for which they had locked their BTC in the Trust is over now.
As for the overall inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs over these past five days, they have surpassed $1.2 billion, according to Bloomberg’s data shared today.
LATEST: Day Five (but its felt like months hasn’t it?) is in books TOTAL ROLLING NET FLOWS at +$1.2b, down a bit after $GBTC’s whopper -$582m edged out the Nine’s +$447m. $GBTC bloodbath up to -$2.2b vs the Nine’s +$3.3b w/ $6.6b in volume. $FBTC joins $IBIT in the Billy Club. pic.twitter.com/q6pFIrPTFV
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) January 19, 2024
