VanEck extends fee waiver on Bitcoin ETF

VanEck is extending the fee waiver for VanEck Bitcoin ETF (HODL) in a bid to woo investors in the competitive Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) marketplace, according to a Nov. 25 announcement.

The asset manager has waived management fees on the spot BTC ETF’s first $2.5 billion in net assets until Jan. 10, 2026, VanEck said.

The fee waiver was previously set to expire in March 2025 and only applied to the ETF’s first $1.5 billion in assets under management (AUM), according to VanEck.

VanEck’s HODL ETF “is approaching the original $1.5B threshold we had put in place, amid investor enthusiasm for Bitcoin’s outlook,” Kyle DaCruz, VanEck’s director of digital assets products, in a statement.

He added that VanEck hopes this fee waiver extension will encourage “investors to explore the potential of Bitcoin and digital assets exposure in their portfolios.”

Virtually all of the BTC and Ether (ETH) ETFs listed in 2025 initially waived at least a portion of management fees.

Typically, cryptocurrency ETF sponsors set fee waivers to expire within six months to one year of a fund’s launch date.

VanEck Bitcoin ETF has net assets of approximately $1.28 billion, according to the ETF’s website.

This puts VanEck behind some half a dozen competing spot BTC funds. The largest, iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), has amassed some $46 billion in AUM, according to BlackRock’s website.

Bitcoin has dominated the ETF landscape since spot BTC ETFs launched in January. Investor interest accelerated after crypto-friendly President-elect Donald Trump prevailed on Nov. 5 in the US elections.

On Nov. 21, US BTC ETFs broke $100 billion in net assets for the first time, according to data from Bloomberg Intelligence.

“[T]he growth of spot Bitcoin ETFs stemmed from two main factors: broad Bitcoin adoption and a superior product,” Bryan Armour, director of passive strategies research at Morningstar, told Cointelegraph.

“The ETFs allowed new investors to buy Bitcoin for the first time, like those unable to set up a wallet and buy Bitcoin on a cryptocurrency exchange,” said Armour. They “also benefit from cheaper trading, low fees, and best-in-class Bitcoin storage practices.”

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