According to Bitcoin analyst Alessandro Ottaviani, outflows from Grayscale’s embattled GBTC might be close to an end.
This is due to the fact that Grayscale’s Bitcoin Mini Trust is expected to have fees as low as 0.15%.
Not so fast?
However, Eric Balchunas, Bloomberg’s senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, has warned that such fees are “hypothetical.”
This means that the fund will not necessarily be able to offer such low fees. With that being said, Balchunas still sees this as a positive development given that Grayscale had to pick such a percentage.
Grayscale initially unveiled its plans to launch a smaller fund back in March. The main selling point of the spinoff fund, which will be launched under the BTC ticker, is that it would allow existing GBTC holders to purchase ETF shares without creating a taxable event.
Formidable competition
In the meantime, BlackRock’s IBIT has been predicted to surpass Grayscale’s GBTC by total assets under management by the end of this month. The former already boasts more than $17 billion in AUM, which already makes it one of the largest ETFs on the market ahead of such giants as iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM) and the iShares MSCI Japan ETF (EWJ).
The disastrous outflows of Grayscale’s GBTC have been one of the key market headwinds. Grayscale CEO Michale Sonnenshein previously predicted that Bitcoin fees would be able to come down. Presently, GBTC offers the highest fees among Bitcoin ETF issuers (1.5%). Hence, it is not capable of competing with such behemoths as BlackRock and Fidelity. Bitwise, for comparison, offers a record-low fee of just 0.2%.
