(Bloomberg) -- A fee war is breaking out among exchange-traded funds jockeying to benefit from the push to create virtual worlds.
The $856 million Roundhill Ball Metaverse ETF (ticker METV) cut its management fee to 0.59% from 0.75% on Friday, according to a statement Monday. That’s the lowest fee among the two other ETFs that track the metaverse, the Subversive Metaverse ETF (PUNK) and the Fount Metaverse ETF (MTVR), which hold less than $15 million in assets combined.
Roundhill’s reduction is the latest volley in a cost-cutting race across the ETF industry, even in less crowded corners seeking to be among the first seizing on new developments. It took one day for a similar spat to break out among U.S. Bitcoin derivative ETFs last year, while some of the biggest issuers are currently waging a war of tiny fee cuts in fixed-income funds.
While METV is the oldest and by far the biggest metaverse-tracking ETF, competition is heating up. Both Fidelity Investment and Global X Funds have filed applications for metaverse products in the past two weeks. Neither filings have management fees listed yet
“That was a pretty big jump,” said Athanasios Psarofagis, ETF analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence. “You’ve got PUNK now and Global X and Fidelity just filed too. So, it’s going to get competitive.”
METV’s holdings consist primarily of software, Internet and semiconductor stocks, including Nvidia Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Meta Platforms Inc.
Assets in METV exploded after Meta changed its name from Facebook Inc. in October to signal its embrace of virtual reality. METV, which was trading under the ticker META at the time, saw hundreds of millions of dollars of inflows in the weeks that followed, leading some industry analysts to suggest the cash haul was a case of ticker confusion.
However, those assets have hung around. METV has only posted two days of net outflows since Facebook’s name change, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Even still, it’s unclear that the ETF -- which launched last June -- would have seen such strong growth without Meta’s name change, Psarofagis said.
“They were definitely early and got the bump with the Meta change,” Psarofagis said. “I’m not sure they would have the same assets under management they do now without all that attention.”
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