21Shares slashes fees on two flagship crypto ETPs

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Swiss cryptocurrency exchange traded product provider 21Shares has significantly reduced the fees for two of its flagship products.

Fees for the $14mn (€13mn) 21Shares Crypto Basket 10 ETP, which launched three years ago, have been slashed from 2.5 per cent to 0.49 per cent with immediate effect.

The $11mn 21Shares Bytetree Bold ETP, which was first listed by the Zug-based crypto asset manager in 2022, cut fees from 1.49 per cent to 0.65 per cent.

The Crypto Basket 10 ETP provides investors with access to the top 10 digital assets by market cap, offering broad coverage of the crypto market, while the Bytetree Bold vehicle “combines gold’s proven success and bitcoin’s emerging role as a store of value”.

This article was previously published by Ignites Europe, a title owned by the FT Group.

Mandy Chiu, head of financial product development at 21Shares, said it had always been her company’s “mission” to “make investing in cryptocurrency more accessible”, adding that the fee cut reflects the company’s “commitment to delivering value” to investors.

The asset manager said its fee cuts underscored its aim to provide “innovative and affordable investment solutions that meet the evolving needs of the global investment community”.

Both ETPs are 100 per cent physically backed by their underlying digital assets, which are held in cold storage by an institutional grade custodian, “offering greater protection than custody options available to individual investors”, according to 21Shares.

The fee cuts are the latest in the European crypto ETP space since the approval of spot bitcoin exchange traded funds in the US in January.

US-based ETF provider Global X ETFs in May temporarily cut fees for two physically backed crypto ETPs to zero.

The asset manager, which is owned by South Korea’s Mirae Asset, said it would not charge any fees for its Global X Bitcoin and Global X Ethereum ETPs until January 3 2025, when the fee would change to 0.29 per cent.

Brazilian digital asset manager Hashdex in June announced a “complete fee waiver” for a physically backed crypto ETP, the Nasdaq Crypto Index Europe ETP.

In January Invesco and WisdomTree slashed fees by over 60 per cent on European bitcoin products after an “unprecedented” number of new ETFs became available to US investors following the local regulator’s approval of spot bitcoin ETFs.

CoinShares, Europe’s largest digital asset manager, subsequently reduced fees for its physically-backed bitcoin ETP.

Last year 21Shares shut six ETPs due to limited investor demand.

*Ignites Europe is a news service published by FT Specialist for professionals working in the asset management industry. Trials and subscriptions are available at igniteseurope.com.