Quote from: fillippone on March 30, 2021, 08:59:56 PM

Quote from: DaRude on March 30, 2021, 08:53:00 PM

This sounds like shitty journalism is 2% really "egregious" compared to 1%?

Just remember we are talking about passive investments funds.
Many of those types of funds in traditional finance have commissions up to 0.25%. Many of them are actually free, as they are building block for more complex products, or are actually used to lure customers into an investment relationship.

Seconding fillippone, 2% is absolutely obscene for a passive fund. Also, over time a 2% decay vs a 1% decay is a massive difference for long term shareholders.

My guess is that US ETF's, whenever they come, will have fees less than 1% and more than 0.25%, just because they will have to factor in the cost for safe custody of bitcoins.

@DaRude

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Without US ETF GBTC still seems to be the only play in town.

I use to believe this as well, and I guess I still do for a direct bitcoin play, but now I cannot ignore the risk of a permanent 2% fee and what it implies. I need to investigate if there are other options.

I could try to open a Fidelity account, and move some funds there. They seem to offer BTCC to US clients. Or invest in indirect instruments, such as Microstrategy. (which I did, and believe MSTR is now fairly valued and have since moved 1/3 of my GBTC to MSTR)

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This will imply the negative premium will be permanent
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Not following how you managed to come to that conclusion. Premium ultimately comes down to demand on the secondary market, if there's net demand there will be premium, if for some reason demand disappears then there will be discount. For demand to disappear there must be another more lucrative alternative for US retirement accounts to get exposure to BTC. Without US ETF GBTC still seems to be the only play in town.

I think the risk of a permanent negative premium is high because investors in secondary market will be more cautious at buying GBTC. Investors see that an ETF is on the horizon, or find some way to invest in the Canadian ETF's (Fidelity seems to offer it to US investors), or do what I did and put some money into an indirect bitcoin vehicle for now, like Microstrategy, or they can wait. This will remain unless Grayscale reduces its fee.