The VanEck Bitcoin Strategy Fund on Tuesday is seeing its first day of trading, with the bitcoin futures-pegged exchange-traded fund, which bills itself as the “lowest-cost” option, compared against rivals, outperforming “spot” bitcoin values . VanEck’s ETF was down less 1%, at last check, on Tuesday afternoon, in its first day of trading on Cboe Global Markets Inc.’s Cboe BZX exchange. By comparison, spot bitcoin was down more than 5%, in line with the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF and Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF , which also are pegged to bitcoin futures traded on the CME Group’s Chicago Mercantile Exchange . The VanEck offering has billed itself as a cheaper option to ProShares and Valkyrie funds, which came out before it. The VanEck’s expense ratio is 0.65%, which translates to an annual cost of $6.50 for every $1,000 invested, compared with 0.95% for its two rivals. VanEck also claims that its ETF can be more tax-efficient than its rivals due to its C-corp structure. The outperformance of XBTF on Tuesday may provide some modest solace to the folks at VanEck who saw a spot bitcoin ETF rejected last week by the Securities and Exchange Commission on the grounds that it doesn’t properly prevent fraud and market manipulation. However, first-mover advantage on bitcoin futures may ultimately carry the day, with ProShares boasting assets of around $1.4 billion, Valkyrie’s bitcoin futures market looking after $60 million and VanEck likely to end Tuesday’s session well below that, even considering its outperformance.
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