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.
Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust ETF (GBTC) generates more revenue than all other spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds combined, despite charging fees up to seven times higher than its competitors.
Nate Geraci, president of ETF Store, stated on X on Sunday that GBTC is still making more money than all other ETFs combined. “And the gap is not even close,” he added.
The fund generates approximately $268.5 million in annual revenue by applying a 1.5% expense ratio 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 spot Bitcoin ETFs launched in January 2024, GBTC has maintained its revenue dominance, highlighting how fee structures influence the fund’s economics regardless of its market share.
In addition to its first-mover advantage and brand recognition, Grayscale controls GBTC’s management, enabling it to charge a 1.5% fee.
For example, BlackRock’s IBIT holds three times more assets, amounting to $56 billion, compared to GBTC’s $18 billion, yet it generates only about $137 million in revenue with its 0.25% fee.
In response, Grayscale launched the Bitcoin Mini Trust (BTC) in March 2025 to provide a lower-cost alternative to GBTC’s fee and diversify its product lineup amid growing competition.
Some Losses, Some Gains
Grayscale pioneered regulated Bitcoin investment in 2013 with its Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) as a private trust before offering an ETF in January of the previous year, alongside several other ETF issuers.
Grayscale set all of this into motion after winning a landmark case against the SEC, which was led by Gensler at the time, to convert its trust into an ETF.
Converting a trust into an ETF changes key aspects of its structure.
They transform it from a closed-end form into an open-ended structure, allowing investors to redeem shares based on demand.
The SEC explained that expense ratios for ETFs are “historically lower than those for corresponding mutual funds” because distribution and transaction costs are typically lower and different.
The SEC notes that ETFs are “more tax efficient” because investors can generally redeem ETF shares “in-kind.”
Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein claimed in April of last year that fees “will come down” as the ETF market matures.
CoinGlass data recorded the largest single-day outflow for GBTC on March 19, 2024, totaling $618 million.
At this pace, investors could run out of Bitcoin by July 8, though James Seyffart, ETF research analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, previously told Decrypt that outflows “would slow from here.”