Fidelity reduces fee for proposed spot Bitcoin ETF to 0.25% amidst industry fee rivalry
Fidelity has recently revealed in an S-1 filing that it plans to reduce the fee for its upcoming Bitcoin ETF to 0.25%. This is a significant decrease from the previously announced fee of 0.39% on December 29. Furthermore, Fidelity will waive this fee for market participants until the end of July, according to the latest filing.
In a competitive market, US companies competing to launch the initial spot Bitcoin ETFs are slashing fees in anticipation of approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Bitwise, WisdomTree, Invesco, and Valkyrie, among others, have aggressively reduced fees as indicated in their recent filings.
It is widely expected that the US financial regulator will approve spot Bitcoin ETFs in the near future, with trading likely to start on January 11.
Jan van Eck, CEO of VanEck, another company applying for a spot Bitcoin ETF, stated in an interview with CNBC on January 9 that he expects trading of their proposed fund to begin on Thursday.
In a separate incident, the SEC reported a security breach in its X account on January 9. A fraudulent tweet from the account, falsely claiming the approval of spot Bitcoin ETF applications, caused a sudden drop in Bitcoin’s price. At the time of writing, the price had fallen to approximately $45,723, after surpassing $47,000 on January 9.
Following this incident, SEC lawyers confirmed in a discussion with Fox Business that the regulator will conduct an internal investigation into potential market manipulation.
Despite the security breach, James Seyffart, a research analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, remains optimistic about the ETF decision timeline. In a post on January 9, Seyffart maintained expectations for potential approvals to proceed as planned, with trading possibly starting on Thursday.
