VanEck Temporarily Cuts Bitcoin ETF Fee to Zero After Lagging in Assets

• VanEck will drop the management fee for its spot bitcoin ETF, HODL, until March 31, 2025.
• Previously, it had charged a 0.2% fee, which is below that of its competitors.

VanEck will temporarily cut the management fee to zero for its spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), HODL, as its assets are well below some of its competitors.

The asset manager said it will drop the fee until March 31, 2025, unless the fund reaches $1.5 billion in assets before that date, VanEck noted in a post on social media platform X.

HODL previously charged investors a fee of 0.2%, which was already one of the lowest among the competitors. For example, BlackRock, Fidelity, Invesco, WisdomTree, and Valkyrie charge 0.25%. Only Franklin Templeton charges a lower fee of 0.19%.

While VanEck claims that the fee drop is because it believes in bitcoin "so much," it's possible that a less successful start of the fund, compared to its competitors, might have played a role in it.

HODL currently manages just over $305 million in assets under management (AUM), while most other funds have long crossed the $1 billion mark. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Fund (IBIT) currently stands at $13 billion in AUM, the most among the issuers, excluding Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), which already had almost $30 billion lined up when it joined the race.

Read more: Bitcoin ETF Fees Will Play Critical Role in the Race to Popularity