On Tuesday, BlackRock’s spot Ethereum ETF saw its cumulative net inflows surpass the $1 billion mark. This cemented it as the go-to option of investors in the market.
The Wall Street behemoth had launched its iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA) back in late July, along with similar products from seven other asset managers.
This saw a footrace ensue for cash from investors and it has seen BlackRock’s competitors fail to keep pace, as they have continued to fall behind.
The products
Fidelity’s Ethereum Fund is currently the second runner-up to BlackRock’s Ethereum Fund. It has seen cumulative net inflows of about $367 million.
The third position is taken up by Bitwise Ethereum ETF, which has recorded cumulative net inflows of about $310 million.
As far as Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust is concerned, it has seen inflows of about $227 million during this time.
When the cumulative net inflows of these three products are combined, they are a total of $900 million. This means that they are still collectively lower than the individual progress that ETHA has made.
The performance
Since it was launched, BlackRock’s spot Ethereum ETF has not recorded any outflows, even though there has been some uncertainty in the crypto market.
On August 5th, there was a decline in Ethereum’s price of about 22%. However, this did not stop investors. BlackRock’s Ethereum product still recorded inflows of $47 million that day.
They invested $100 million more into it the next day. There have been times when there has been a rather stark disparity in the flows between ETHA and its competition.
The product had its best day on July 30th when it managed to pull in about $118 million. Data from Farside Investors shows that on the same day, Fidelity’s product saw inflows of just $8.6 million.
The differences
Nonetheless, ETHA has not enjoyed the same level of popularity as BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF, which had been launched at the start of the year, along with other similar products.
It had taken only five trading days for that product to surpass $1 billion in cumulative net inflows. Meanwhile, ETHA crossed the same threshold in 21 days.
Moreover, there have also been outflows recorded from spot Ethereum ETFs of about $440 million. It is Grayscale’s Ethereum Trust that has led the outflows.
The fund has seen its cumulative net outflows reach $2.4 billion since it was upgraded to an ETF from a closed-end fund.
According to analysts, Grayscale’s product appears to have a high expense ratio. This is likely because the asset manager charges a fee of about 2.5% from its investors.
In comparison, ETHA’s expense ratio is about 0.25%, the same as that of Fidelity’s fund. Likewise, the five other Ethereum ETFs are cheaper.
It is also worth noting that ETHA’s early success does not have anything to do with the performance of the second-largest crypto token.
Last week, the inflows of the fund allowed BlackRock to surpass Grayscale in terms of total assets under management (AUM).