Today’s letter is brought to you by Cal.com!
What do I have in common with Chad Hurley (YouTube), Tobi Lütke (Shopify), and Alexis (776/Reddit)? We are all early investors in Cal.com and we use it instead of Calendly.
Cal.com is the leading open-source scheduling platform, which gives you the same superpowers of efficiency previously reserved for elite corporations & tech gurus.
Top performing teams choose Cal.com to increase business productivity, get insights on their team, and their automated workflows.
Stop wasting your time with scheduling software that doesn’t work. Use technology to make your life easier. The best part? Set up is quick, easy, and you will never go back to your boring calendar tool.
Exclusive for Pomp Letter subscribers/Pomp Podcast listeners, use code “POMP” for $500 off when you set your team up with Cal.com. Save time. Save money. Use Cal.com.
To investors,
The bitcoin spot ETF approvals will be announced this week. The final decisions will likely come on Wednesday with trading to commence before the end of the week.
In preparation for that event, each ETF administrator must reveal what their management fee for the respective funds will be. Those numbers have started to come in this morning and there is only one way to describe what is happening — the fee war has begun.
Grayscale’s GBTC has been the goliath in the room for years. They managed tens of billions of dollars in the largest bitcoin fund in the world. That trust structure had a 2% management fee, which is more than double the average ETF fee. The argument was that bitcoin was more expensive to manage, so the fee was justified.
In reality, Grayscale had a monopoly in the US on the publicly traded bitcoin funds. They could charge whatever they wanted. This was an amazing business for them and they likely will never get the credit they deserve for the incredible work they did to educate, and onboard, so many investors to the digital currency.
Competition is coming fast and furious though.
Grayscale revealed this morning that their management fee will drop to 1.5% once they convert the trust structure to an ETF. While a 25% reduction in their management fee may sound large, this will leave Grayscale significantly higher than almost all of their competition.
Here are some of the other management fees that ETF providers have revealed, according to James Seyffart from Bloomberg:
These numbers are coming out very quickly this morning, so any changes or updates will not be included in my analysis.
Another area of “fees” is the bid/ask spread for these ETFs. According to Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas, the expectation is that any ETF with healthy volume the spread will only be 1-2 basis points. That won’t be a big deal for almost all investors in these ETFs.
But something more interesting is happening with these fee wars on the ETF.
Van Eck advisor Gabor Gurbacs points out that it will “cost less to hold a Bitcoin ETF for a year than a single trade on Coinbase.” So the ETFs may actually create a drop in transaction fees for the crypto exchanges as well, not just the crypto-native asset management firms.
He goes on to highlight a potential downside to these low fees on the ETF applications:
“Bitcoin ETFs are coming in with pricing structures in the low double digit range and many with waivers and discounts. This clearly benefits the holders. However, it scares me when little to no money is made. Issuers will look elsewhere to make money (securities lending, trading, etc) I personally just like an upfront higher fees with clear and sustainable incentives. If possible a deep look into total cost of ownership. But that’s not how the ETF pricing battles go. People like to see low numbers.”
These are important points to keep in mind as the ETFs are approved and scaled.
Now many of you have emailed me questions about what I expect to happen with the bitcoin ETF, so here are a few simple predictions:
The spot bitcoin ETF is approved this Wednesday and starts trading on Thursday
The ETFs receive at least $2 billion in AUM within 48 hours
The ETFs receive at least $5 billion in AUM in the first 30 days
Blackrock emerges with the highest AUM outside Grayscale after the first 90 days
The marketing spend to promote bitcoin spot ETFs is more than $100 million cumulatively
There are at least one bitcoin spot ETF ad played in the Super Bowl
Financial advisors around the country begin allocating 1-3% of client assets to bitcoin
At least one sovereign wealth fund announces they bought the spot bitcoin ETF within the first 12 months
Speculation around an ETH spot ETF will intensify by end of Q1
Non-bitcoin ETF issuers begin allocating some of their AUM into the bitcoin spot ETF
Bitcoin’s volatility drastically reduces in the next 3 years
Bitcoin’s compound annual growth rate falls to ~20% within 5 years
It will be interesting to see what I get right and where I am wrong. Predicting the future is hard. Regardless of what happens, the long-term outlook of bitcoin remains a positive one.
Hope you all have a great start to your week. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.
-Anthony Pompliano
Darius Dale is the Founder & CEO of 42Macro.
In this conversation, we talk about global liquidity, Wall Street investors on bitcoin ETF, Macro Weather Model on asset prices in 2024, and more.
Listen on iTunes: Click here
Listen on Spotify: Click here
Earn Bitcoin by listening on Fountain: Click here
My CNBC Appearance From Yesterday - Bitcoin Welcomes Wall Street To The Party
Podcast Sponsors
Frec.com - Use tax-loss harvesting to save on your tax bill, while keeping the same investment exposure you already have.
Cal.com - Changing the calendar management game. Use code “POMP” for $500 off when you sign up.
Trust & Will - Estate planning made easy. They are fast, secure, and simple to use. Get your will or trust created today.
Auradine - A new bitcoin miner powered by the world’s first 4 nanometer silicon chip technology.
Base: Base is shaping the future of the on-chain world with near-zero gas fees and rapid transaction speeds.
ResiClub: Your data-driven gateway to the US housing market.
Bay Area Times: A visual newsletter explaining the latest tech & business news.
You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.
Fee War on Bitcoin ETF Has Begun - Plus 12 Predictions