The hopefuls in the race toward a spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) waited until the very last minute to submit the final versions of their S-1 form applications on Dec. 29. They trickled into the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) throughout the day, with Invesco Galaxy, Bitwise, WisdomTree and Fidelity coming in after BlackRock, Van Eck and Valkyrie.
Fidelity, WisdomTree, and Invesco Galaxy announced their authorized participants in the new filings. Invesco Galaxy selected Virtu and JPMorgan, while WisdomTree and Fidelity gave the honor to Jane Street Capital.
WisdomTree has chosen to maintain in-kind share creation and redemption, in spite of the SEC’s urging to switch to cash.
In addition, analyst Eric Balchunas noticed, the competitors have started a bit of a price war, with Invesco Galaxy waiving its fee for first six months and the first $5 billion in assets. Fidelity set its fee at 0.39%.
Yes.. told ya'll the fee war would break out bf the starting gun even went off. And it won't ever end. This is normal life in the ETF Terrordome tho, the crypto exchange mind cannot comprehend this. https://t.co/5Am76DHzAi
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) December 29, 2023
Bitwise has yet to name authorized participants, but it did note in its new S-1 that an unnamed party is interested in purchasing up to $200 million in shares of the ETF.
Related: Spot Bitcoin ETF could result in ‘millions of unbacked BTC,’ analyst says
BlackRock, Van Eck, Grayscale, Bitwise, WisdomTree, Invesco Galaxy, Fidelity, ARK Invest, Valkyrie, Franklin, Hashdex, Global X ETFs and Pando Asset have all submitted S-1 applications for spot Bitcoin ETFs.
The SEC set Dec. 29 as the deadline for spot BTC ETF S-1 amendments. Grayscale’s last submission was a new S-3 filed on Dec. 27 after the resignation of Barry Silbert from the board of directors. In the new filing, Grayscale stated that it would convert its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust into a cash-only spot ETF, as Van Eck did earlier the same day and BlackRock did in an earlier revision.
Silbert and the Digital Currency Group, which he is thefounder and CEO of, are under SEC investigation.
Magazine: SEC delays Ether ETFs, Binance settlement approved and another court loss for SBF: Hodler’s Digest, Dec. 17-23
