According to Cointelegraph, BlackRock is expanding its crypto products overseas. On August 28, the company listed its Ethereum ETF on Brazil’s B3 exchange through depositary receipts. Retail and institutional investors can trade iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA) locally under the code ETHA39.
A depository receipt is a security that represents a share of a foreign company or fund, typically traded in the local currency and backed by the original asset. BlackRock will offer its Ether ETF at one-third of the original price, with a management fee of 0.25% per year. The management fee will be halved to 0.12% in the first year or until the asset management scale reaches $2.5 billion.
BlackRock introduced the Ether ETF a few months after launching the iShares Bitcoin Trust. Cristiano Castro, director of BlackRock in Brazil, said the fund will meet demand for crypto assets in the country, which was one of the first markets to allow trading of crypto products on its exchanges.
According to Felipe Gonçalves, director of B3, there are 180,000 investors in Brazil holding crypto products worth nearly 5.5 billion Brazilian reals (about $1 billion). In the first five months of 2024, crypto trading volume reached $6 billion, up 30% from last year.
