Despite significant outflows since January 2024, $268 million per year is still generated by GBTC’s 1.5% fee, surpassing the combined $211 million generated by its rivals.
More revenue is generated by Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust ETF (GBTC) than by all other spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds combined, despite its fees being up to seven times higher than those of its competitors.
It was stated on X by Nate Geraci, president of ETF Store, on Sunday that more money is still being made by GBTC than by all other ETFs combined. “And the gap is not even close,” he added.
Approximately $268.5 million in annual revenue is generated by the fund, with a 1.5% expense ratio applied to $17.9 billion in assets under management, according to data from Coinglass.
An implied annual revenue of just over $211.8 million is generated by all the other U.S. Bitcoin ETFs shown by Geraci, based on a total of $89 billion in assets under management.
Despite losing more than half of its holdings since the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024, GBTC’s revenue dominance has been maintained, highlighting how fee structures have influenced the fund’s economics, regardless of its market share.
In addition to its first-mover advantage and brand recognition, control over GBTC’s management is held by Grayscale, enabling a 1.5% fee to be charged.
For example, three times more assets, amounting to $56 billion, are held by BlackRock’s IBIT compared to GBTC’s $18 billion, yet only about $137 million in revenue is generated with its 0.25% fee.
In response, the Bitcoin Mini Trust (BTC) was launched by Grayscale in March 2025, primarily to provide a lower-cost alternative to GBTC’s fee, while also diversifying its product lineup amidst growing competition.
Some Losses, Some Gains
Regulated Bitcoin investment was pioneered by Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) in 2013 as a private trust, before an ETF was offered in January of the previous year, alongside several other ETF issuers.
All of this was set into motion after a landmark case was won by Grayscale against the SEC, which was led by Gensler at the time, to convert its trust into an ETF.
When a trust is converted into an ETF, key aspects of its structure are changed.
From a closed-end form, it is transformed into an open-ended structure, allowing shares to be redeemed according to demand.
Because distribution and transaction costs are typically lower and different, the expense ratios for ETFs have been explained by the SEC as “historically lower than those for corresponding mutual funds.”
As such, ETFs are noted by the SEC to be “more tax efficient” because ETF shares are generally redeemable “in-kind.”
It was claimed by Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein in April of last year that the fees “will come down” as the ETF market matures.
The largest single-day outflow for GBTC was recorded on March 19, 2024, totaling $618 million, according to CoinGlass data.
At this pace, Bitcoin could be run out of by July 8, though it was previously stated by James Seyffart, ETF research analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, to Decrypt that outflows “would slow from here.”
