The world’s fourth-largest asset manager has promised to seed its upcoming Ethereum ETF with $4.7 million ahead of launch, according to a regulatory filing.
“Total proceeds to the Trust from the sale of the Seed Baskets were $4,749,975.00,” read Fidelity’s S-1 registration form for its “Fidelity Ethereum Fund” filed on Friday.
Fidelity Buys Its First Batch Of Ethereum
The proceeds were used to buy ETH on June 4, securing 1,250 ETH at the time. They were bought by FMR Capital – an affiliate of Fidelity – securing the asset manager 125,000 shares for $38 each.
When launching an ETF, asset managers seed it with funds to provide liquidity for its initial buyers, while also demonstrating the sponsor’s confidence in the fund. When launching its Bitcoin ETF in January, Fidelity seeded its fund with $20 million. Competitors like BlackRock and Bitwise – some of their largest competitors provided seeds worth $10 million and $200 million respectively.
Earlier this week, Bitwise’s registration statement said it had seeded its Ethereum ETF with $2.5 million, and also disclosed that Pantera Capital Management may be willing to buy $100 million worth of shares. Shortly after Fidelity, BlackRock revealed that it would seed its funds with $10 million, matching its initial investment in the Bitcoin fund.
Though seed numbers are being revealed, Franklin Templeton is one of the only applicants so far to reveal the management fee for their Ethereum fund, indicating that it would match their Bitcoin product at 0.19%. This makes it the cheapest of any Bitcoin or Ethereum ETF so far, with VanEck’s slightly higher at 0.2%.
Experts suspect other providers will reveal their fee as the launch date approaches. Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas recently called July 2 his best estimate for when the funds will go live.
“Everyone likely waiting till last min and/or on BlackRock to disclose to see what they need to orbit around,” Balchunas wrote to Twitter on Friday.
How Well With ETH ETFs Perform?
Analysts generally do not expect Ethereum’s ETF flows to surpass Bitcoin’s, but that they will greatly outperform the average newly launched ETF product. Balchunas has previously predicted that the funds will pull in 20% of the flows that their Bitcoin counterparts did – now up to $14.6 billion since January.
Others are more bullish. K33 Research published a report this month calling for the ETFs to haul 28% of the Bitcoin products’ performance, amounting to $4 billion in five months. Back in March, Standard Chartered said Ethereum ETFs would pull $45 billion of inflows within a year.
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