Spot Bitcoin ETF Fee War Escalates Prior To SEC's Approval Announcement

The competition among hopeful Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) issuers is intensifying as BlackRock, ARK 21, WisdomTree and Valkyrie have revealed their fees in recently submitted S-1 forms.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is scheduled to announce its decision on ARK Invest's and 21 Shares' spot Bitcoin ETF applications Wednesday. Many industry watchers and experts believe that the regulator will approve multiple issuers simultaneously.

BlackRock, ARK 21, Valkyrie and WisdomTree disclosed their final S-1 forms to the U.S. financial regulator, revealing their respective fees. This has highlighted the fee competition among hopeful issuers even before the agency's decision on the applications.

Out of the 11 hopeful applicants, only three issuers—Grayscale, Bitwise and Franklin Templeton—have not yet disclosed their fees as of early morning Monday.

As of now, ARK 21 and VanEck's spot Bitcoin ETFs have the lowest fee of 0.25%, followed by Fidelity at 0.39%, Wisdom Tree at 0.50%, Invesco at 0.59%, Valkyrie at 0.80% and Hashdex at 0.90%.

BlackRock's fee structure is particularly interesting, starting at 0.20% for the first six months and increasing to 0.30% thereafter.

Bloomberg Intelligence senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas took note of the latest filings and commented on ARK Invest and 21 Shares' spot Bitcoin ETF reducing its fee to a minimal 0.25%.
"ARK just dropped their fee to 0.25% in an S-1 filed 20 minutes after BlackRock's. I told you all the fee war would break out before they even launched. And this is without Vanguard in the mix," Balchunas said.

The ETF analyst further clarified, "One quick note on the temporary fee waivers that we're seeing in the bitcoin ETFs. Historically, this hasn't moved the needle much (one ETF back in the day actually paid you to invest in it until it reached a certain AUM mark, but no one cared). Advisors focused on the regular fee since they are long-term investors. That said, given that all these ETFs do the same thing, maybe it will matter all else being equal; we'll see."

Spot Bitcoin ETF issuers have until 8 a.m. Monday to file their final S-1 forms with the SEC. So far, six out of 11 issuers have submitted their forms: BlackRock, ARK 21Shares, VanEck, Valkyrie, WisdomTree and Invesco Galaxy.

Bitcoin has experienced a resurgence in its price and is trading positively at $45,163.42, with a 24-hour trading volume up by 71.98% at $27.91 billion as of 8:18 a.m. ET on Monday.

Bitcoin's recent price action represents a 1.67% spike in its value for the day and a 4.98% gain over the last seven days.

Data from CoinMarketCap shows that Bitcoin's current circulating supply stands at 19.59 million BTC, and its market cap is $873.94 billion.