(Reuters) – Shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust jumped 5% in premarket trading on Monday after the exchange-traded fund (ETF) that tracks the price of bitcoin saw its first day of inflow since January.
The move marks a major milestone for GBTC, which has seen $17.46 billion in withdrawals since it converted from a trust to an easily tradable ETF in January, due to the higher fees it charges compared with rivals.
Some outflows were also tied to the wave of bankruptcies in the crypto industry, as companies that collapsed in the last two years pulled money out of the fund to repay their creditors.
GBTC saw inflows of $63 million on Friday, according to investment management firm Farside Investors. It has $18.08 billion in assets under management (AUM), according to its website.
But its position as the biggest spot bitcoin ETF by AUM has come under threat from BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, which manages $16.91 billion, according to its website.
Grayscale said in March that it would seek approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission to spin off a portion of GBTC’s assets into a new, lower-fee Bitcoin Mini Trust. However, the company has yet to determine the fees the Mini Trust will charge.
Spot bitcoin ETFs offer investors exposure to bitcoin without the need to hold it directly. They were approved by the SEC in January after being rejected for a decade.
(Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)
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