According to Bloomberg, ARK Investment Management and 21Shares have become the first major applicants in the United States to announce the management fees of Bitcoin spot ETFs. According to the updated documents on Monday, the Ark21 Shares Bitcoin ETF will charge a management fee of 0.8%. Although higher than the average fee of 0.54% for US listed ETFs, the fee is lower than the 0.95% charged by the largest Bitcoin futures ETF ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF, and is much lower than the 2% charged by Grayscale GBTC.
Industry experts say Ark and 21Shares have kicked off a "fee race" against asset managers such as BlackRock, Invesco and Fidelity Investments, which are known for their low-cost product lines.
The fact that Ark and 21Shares updated their fees in filings to 80 basis points from 70 basis points could mean it will cost more to run the products than some sponsors and issuers imagine, said James Seyffart, an ETF analyst at Bloomberg.
Ophelia Snyder, co-founder and president of 21Shares, said: "The 0.8% fee is driven by the ‘inherent complexity’ of U.S. listed cash products. While traditional ETFs can use ‘packaged and bundled’ services such as custody, accounting and administration, this is not the case for crypto products. In fact, crypto products use different vendors for almost every part, which does increase operating costs. We think this is a fair price to sustain these markets in the long term."
