Grayscale Investments has no plans to budge on its 1.5% sponsor fee for its spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund, despite the raging fee war between the 10 other spot bitcoin ETF filers.
At 150 basis points, Grayscale's fee is considerably higher than those of its competitors, which have fees ranging between 20 and 90 basis points for similar products.
Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein told reporters at a media roundtable Jan. 11 that his firm had no plans to decrease the fee in the near term but did not rule out potentially lowering fees at some point in the future.
On the first day of trading, GBTC's flows topped $2.3 billion. According to data from Bloomberg, trading activity culminated in net outflows of about $95 million Jan. 11, as clients either cashed out of the previously closed-end fund or rotated into cheaper options.
The outflows represent a tiny fraction — 0.3% — of GBTC's $28.5 billion in assets under management.
Bitwise Bitcoin ETF, the cheapest spot bitcoin ETF, saw day-one inflows of $237.9 million, according to data from Bloomberg. Fidelity's Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund was close on its heels with $226.9 million in inflows, and BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust came in third place with $111.7 million in inflows.