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2 Conditions That Could Force BlackRock to Cut IBIT Fees After MSBT’s Undercut

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Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust (MSBT) launched on April 8 with a 0.14% expense ratio, making it the cheapest US spot Bitcoin ETF and undercutting BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) by 11 basis points.

Senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, however, does not expect BlackRock to respond with a fee reduction. His reasoning centers on IBIT’s liquidity advantage and dominant market position.

This ETF Expert Thinks Otherwise

MSBT pulled in approximately $30.6 million in net inflows on its first day and processed more than 1.6 million shares.

Bitcoin ETF Flows on April 8
Bitcoin ETF Flows on April 8. Source: Farside Investors

Balchunas placed the debut among the top 1% of all ETF launches. He has also projected $5 billion in AUM for MSBT within its first year.

Still, he made clear that IBIT’s position remains secure for now. IBIT holds roughly $55 billion in assets, making it by far the most liquid spot BTC ETF.

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“Prob won’t see any cut from $IBIT. When you are King of the Hill with tons of liquidity, you have pricing power,” wrote Balchunas.

That liquidity moat gives IBIT tighter trading spreads and deeper options market activity, two factors that institutional traders weigh heavily when choosing a fund.

Fellow Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart echoed that view, noting it is unlikely MSBT will compete with IBIT on liquidity anytime soon.

Where the Pressure Falls

Balchunas warned that MSBT’s aggressive pricing could still trigger fee cuts elsewhere. Smaller issuers with less scale may be forced to lower their expense ratios to retain market share.

Because all spot BTC ETFs hold the same underlying asset, fees become one of the few differentiators. MSBT now sits one basis point below Grayscale’s Bitcoin Mini Trust at 0.15% and well below Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) at 0.25%.

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Morgan Stanley also brings a structural advantage most competitors lack. The bank’s wealth management arm employs roughly 16,000 financial advisors overseeing $9.3 trillion in client assets.

Those advisors can now recommend an in-house product rather than directing clients to third-party funds.

Balchunas identified only two scenarios that could force BlackRock to reconsider its pricing.

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  • The first would be sustained outflows from IBIT toward cheaper rivals.
  • The second would be an entry from Vanguard at approximately 0.10%, though he assigned that outcome a 0.01% probability.

The US spot BTC ETF market has grown past $100 billion in cumulative assets since launching in January 2024.

Bitcoin ETF Cumulative Assets
Bitcoin ETF Cumulative Assets. Source: MacroMicro

However, 2026 started slowly, with four consecutive months of net outflows between November 2025 and February 2026.

March reversed that trend with $1.32 billion in inflows. Whether MSBT can sustain its opening momentum and capture a meaningful share of new flows will likely determine how seriously competing issuers treat its pricing signal.

The post 2 Conditions That Could Force BlackRock to Cut IBIT Fees After MSBT’s Undercut appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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What next as bitcoin (BTC) fails to break $73,000 for the third time since ceasefire

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Bitcoin slides to $66,600 as Trump threatens to hit Iran 'extremely hard'

Bitcoin pulled back to $71,843 on Friday after a third attempt to breach $73,000 was met with selling on Thursday, a level that has now rejected the price on every rally since the Iran conflict began in late February.

The retreat is modest. Bitcoin is up 7.9% on the week, its strongest weekly performance of the war so far, holding above the 50-day moving average which has turned upward for the first time since the conflict started. Ether held at $2,189, up 6.6% on the week. Solana’s SOL gained 5.1% to $83.09. XRP added 2.8% to $1.34. Dogecoin climbed 2.4% to $0.092. The entire top 10 is green on the weekly chart for the first time in over a month.

But $73,000 is seemingly a wall. The level has capped bitcoin three times since the ceasefire was announced on Tuesday — each attempt producing a rally that faded within hours. The pattern is identical to the pre-ceasefire range, just shifted higher. Instead of grinding between $65,000 and $73,000, bitcoin is now grinding between $70,000 and $73,000.

“We will need to wait for the price to rise above $75,000 before we can speak of the market entering an active bullish phase,” said Alex Kuptsikevich, FxPro’s chief market analyst, in a note to CoinDesk. He added that bitcoin remains above the 50-day moving average, reinforcing short-term bullish sentiment, but flagged the repeated rejection at $73,000 as the barrier that needs to break.

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Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz set the bar higher, saying the key conditions for bitcoin to resume its uptrend are consolidation above $74,000 followed by a break above $80,000. “Breaking through these levels could trigger a new wave of optimism and restore the uptrend,” he said.

The ceasefire that triggered Tuesday’s rally is already fraying. Iran accused the U.S. of breaching three clauses of the agreement.

The Strait of Hormuz remains only partially reopened with “technical limitations.” Oil rebounded from its 15% single-day crash to trade back above $97.

Ether’s setup is similarly range-bound. The token pulled back 4% from its Wednesday peak to $2,189, which Kuptsikevich described as market noise within a $2,000 to $2,400 consolidation zone.

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“A breakout beyond this calm consolidation zone would signal the start of a directional move,” he said.

Outside of majors, Algorand dropped 11.4%, Aptos fell 6.1%, and Polkadot lost 6.1%, marking an altcoin divergence that typically appears when traders are rotating rather than entering fresh capital.

The Fear and Greed Index climbed out of single digits for the first time in over a month, meanwhile.

If the ceasefire survives through the weekend and the Strait opens further, $73,000 gets its fourth test with momentum behind it. However, Tehran’s grievances escalate or Trump’s rhetoric shifts, the pullback toward $68,000 to $70,000 is the path of least resistance.

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XRP edges higher to $1.35 on breakout, what next for Ripple-linked token

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XRP edges higher to $1.35 on breakout, what next for Ripple-linked token

XRP is trying to stabilize after a sharp move higher, but the bigger question is whether this is real strength or just a short-term bounce. The breakout came on solid volume, yet the lack of follow-through and weak broader structure suggest buyers are still cautious.

News Background

  • XRP ETFs saw $3.32M in inflows, but the scale remains too small to meaningfully shift price direction given the token’s size.
  • The move continues to be driven more by technical positioning than fundamentals, with no clear catalyst behind the recovery.

Price Action Summary

  • XRP moved from $1.33 to $1.35, breaking above the $1.34 level on strong volume.
  • The initial push was sharp, but price quickly settled into a tight range just below $1.36 without extending higher.
  • Short-term volatility remains elevated, with quick dips being bought but rallies still struggling to hold.

Technical Analysis

  • The key signal is the quality of the breakout. Volume confirms participation, but the lack of continuation suggests this is not yet a strong trend shift.
  • XRP remains within a broader downtrend, and rallies are still capped below the $1.40 level.
  • Some indicators point to exhaustion rather than strength, with analysts flagging potential downside if momentum fades.
  • At the same time, tight consolidation near current levels shows buyers are at least attempting to build a base.

What traders should watch

  • $1.34 is now the immediate pivot. Holding above it keeps the short-term recovery intact.
  • $1.36-$1.40 remains the key resistance zone. A clean break is needed to shift momentum meaningfully.
  • On the downside, a move back below $1.32-$1.31 would signal the breakout has failed and reopen pressure toward $1.28.

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Coinbase Announces Upgrade for x402 Protocol Enabling Usage-Based Pricing

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Coinbase Announces Upgrade for x402 Protocol Enabling Usage-Based Pricing

Coinbase has announced an upgrade for the x402 protocol, enabling usage-based pricing for agentic AI compute requests, which replaces the former flat fee model.

In a post on X on Thursday, Coinbase Developer Platform announced the “Upto” scheme has gone live, adding it will help open up “variable-cost services” for agentic AI such as large language model inference, compute and data queries.

“Until now, x402 only supported exact, fixed-price payments. That works great for deterministic APIs. But it blocked an entire category of services where the cost depends on usage, such as token count, compute time, or query complexity,” Coinbase Developer Platform said.

“Upto is an EVM implementation, supporting all ERC20s, and CDP Facilitator supports fully gasless payments,” it added.

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The move comes amid growing support for the x402 protocol as a wide range of firms prepare for future agentic commerce adoption, which is expected to bring extreme levels of network demand and require frictionless payments and near-instant transactions to support agentic AI.

Source: Coinbase Developer Platform

Flat-fee problem gets a fix

The Upto scheme allows sellers to configure maximum prices, while buyers will be able to authorize prices up to a specific amount. 

On the server end, where costs fluctuate, the server will charge only for how much it actually takes to complete the task, meaning users won’t be overcharged and may even pay less than the specified maximum price.

Previously, simple and complex requests cost the same amount, resulting in some users either overpaying or underpaying for tasks done by AI agents. This upgrade will help users set prices they are willing to pay before a task instead of guessing how much they think the task will cost for an agent to complete.

Related: CIA to integrate AI ‘co-workers’ to process intelligence, catch spies

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Developed by Coinbase, the protocol’s ownership was handed over to the nonprofit Linux Foundation earlier this month, with big tech firms such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services having a stake in the protocol via the x402 Foundation.

Despite the hype surrounding x402, the network has seen declining adoption rates in 2026 after hitting peak levels in November, according to Dune Analytics data. Between Nov. 4 and Nov. 10, the protocol saw 13.7 million transactions, its biggest week on record.

However, it has been on a steep decline since then, with weekly transaction volume dropping below 1 million in early January and continuing to plunge further over the first quarter. As of the last week in March, x402 saw just 112,708 transactions.

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