BlackRock Brazil to Introduce Depositary Receipts Fund Emulating US BTC ETF

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has announced the launch of a new Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund in Brazil. The fund, known as a Brazilian Depositary Receipts (BDR) ETF, will be available for trading starting from March 1. BlackRock has partnered with B3, a Brazilian financial market infrastructure provider, to offer this product.
Karina Saade, the president of BlackRock Brazil, made this announcement at the company’s headquarters in São Paulo. Saade explained that BDRs are securities issued in Brazil and backed by shares of ETFs issued abroad. Therefore, the Brazilian ETF is essentially the same as the BTC ETF that BlackRock launched in the United States in January. It will mirror the performance of the US ETF and have an administrative fee of 0.25%. However, there will be a one-year exemption on the first $5 billion of assets under management (AUM). It is important to note that BDRs are subject to full taxation.
To invest in the Brazilian fund, investors must already have at least 1 million reals ($201,000) invested in the market. However, BlackRock Brazil is still awaiting approval for retail sales.
Currently, there are 13 ETFs with crypto exposure listed on B3, which started listing in 2021. These ETFs have a combined value of 2.5 billion reals ($503 million). So far this year, the Brazilian crypto ETFs have seen a trade volume of 30 million reals ($5 million).
The BlackRock BTC ETF was one of the 10 approved by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on January 10. Within two weeks, the fund reached $2 billion in AUM and had the largest debut month in the history of ETFs, tying with Fidelity’s spot BTC fund. Currently, the BlackRock ETF has over $8 billion in AUM.
According to reports, BlackRock is also considering the launch of a spot Ether (ETH) ETF in Brazil, pending SEC approval for a US launch.