Grayscale

Grayscale filed to list on the New York Stock Exchange on 13 November 2025. The filing arrives while its two largest funds are losing assets steadily: GBTC has seen nearly $25bn leave since it converted to an ETF in January 2024, and ETHE $4.8bn since July 2024.

The cause is not mysterious. GBTC charges 1.5% a year on $17.3bn of assets, which produces roughly $260m of revenue, and ETHE charges 2.5% on $3.4bn for another $85m or so. Competing spot bitcoin ETFs launched at a fraction of that fee for identical exposure. Every basis point of difference compounds annually against a holder, and money has moved accordingly.

The strategic logic of listing under these conditions is straightforward once stated: the fee income is large, declining, and the business is worth more to public shareholders now than after another two years of outflows. That is a defensible reason to go public and it is not the reason a prospectus emphasises.

For anyone holding GBTC, the arithmetic is simpler than the corporate story. You are paying 1.5% for exposure available elsewhere for much less, and the only reason not to switch is a tax position that makes selling expensive. If that does not apply to you, the fee is a choice you are making every year.

Before January 2024, GBTC was a closed-end trust with no redemption mechanism, and it traded at a persistent discount to the bitcoin it held — at times a very large one — because holders who wanted out had to sell to another buyer rather than redeem.

Conversion to an ETF fixed that. Redemption closed the discount, and the structural complaint against Grayscale disappeared overnight.

It was replaced by a simpler one. In a competitive ETF market the question is no longer whether the wrapper tracks the asset; it is what the wrapper costs. Grayscale kept its legacy fee into a market where that fee was suddenly comparable, and the outflows are what comparison looks like when the answer is available on a single screen.

The lesson generalises past this one company. A product that was uniquely available can charge for access; the same product in a competitive market can only charge for being better. Grayscale is the clearest example in crypto of that transition happening quickly.