Data from Morningstar shows that despite rising demand for Bitcoin, Bitcoin ETP products in Europe have seen net outflows of more than $500 million so far this year, while other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum ETPs have attracted $42 million in funds in the region.
Pierre Debru, head of quantitative research at WisdomTree, said that after the launch of the US Bitcoin ETF, customer interest in European ETPs increased, but it also brought unprecedented competition, forcing European issuers to reduce fees.
For example, BlackRock and Fidelity now offer an annual management fee of 0.25%, while European Bitcoin ETP providers such as Invesco, WisdomTree and CoinShares have reduced fees from more than 0.9% to less than 0.4%; similarly, Canada Fidelity FBTC also significantly reduced its management fee on January 12, from 0.95% to 0.39%, which is comparable to the US ETF launched on the same day.
Funds that failed to lower fees performed poorly, such as Grayscale GBTC (charging 1.5% fees) and Canada's Purpose Bitcoin ETF (charging 1% fees), the latter of which saw 20% of its assets flow out during this period.
However, VanEck Europe CEO Martijn Rozemuller said that despite increased competition, the company's regional crypto ETFs still received small inflows. (CryptoPotato)