Asset manager 21Shares set management fees for its 21Shares Core Ethereum ETF (CETH) at 0.21% and tipped plans to waive those fees entirely for up to six months after listing, or until the fund onboards at least $500 million, according to an amended S-1 filed with United States regulators on July 17.
Competition is heating up among the issuers of spot Ether (ETH) ETFs now that US regulators have reportedly begun giving them tentative approval to begin listing as soon as July 23. A total of eight prospective issuers are vying to list spot ETH ETFs next week.
21Shares joins a growing list of issuers that are slashing fees to woo investors during the spot ETH funds’ crucial first months of launch. In a July 8 filing, VanEck revealed plans to waive the VanEck Ethereum ETF’s 0.20% management fee for up to one year after listing, or until the fund onboards at least $1.5 billion in assets under management (AUM).
Filings from other ETH ETF sponsors — including Franklin Templeton and BlackRock — also allude to the possibility of temporary discounts.
The emerging fee war is a repeat of what happened with Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs, which were listed earlier this year. Around half of the nearly dozen BTC ETFs on the market slashed management fees or temporarily waived them entirely in a bid to draw investor fund flows away from rivals.
Analysts say the ETH ETFs could attract up to $10 billion in inflows in the months after launch and send Ether prices soaring to all-time highs by the end of the year.
The expected approval of ETH ETFs is feeding mounting speculation that additional types of crypto ETFs may soon follow. On Jan. 8, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) filed applications to list VanEck and 21Shares’ proposed spot Solana ETFs on its exchange platform. US regulators are expected to make a final decision on those funds around March 2025.