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- 21Shares is extending its single-asset lineup into two different niches: DeFi through ETHFI and privacy-focused crypto through ZEC.
- Both products charge 2.50% annually, creating a considerably higher cost hurdle than the issuer’s core Bitcoin and Ethereum products.
- Zcash now has exchange-traded investment vehicles in Europe and the U.S., while ETHFI tests demand for listed exposure to individual DeFi protocols.
21Shares is pushing its European crypto lineup further beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum with exchange-traded products tied to ether.fi’s ETHFI token and Zcash.
The 21Shares ether.fi ETP, ticker ETHFI, and 21Shares Zcash ETP, ticker ZCASH, began trading on Euronext Paris and Euronext Amsterdam on September 22. Both are physically backed, meaning the products hold the underlying cryptoassets rather than using derivatives to replicate their performance. Each charges a 2.50% annual product fee.
That fee is a meaningful part of the investment case. By comparison, 21Shares’ Ethereum Staking ETP charges 1.49%, while its Core Bitcoin and Core Ethereum products currently carry a 0.10% fee under an extended waiver through June 2027. The new ETPs therefore sit at the more expensive end of the issuer’s range, consistent with the economics of narrower single-asset products.
For an investor comparing the ETP with a hypothetical fee-free direct holding, a 2.50% annual charge creates a 2.5-percentage-point performance drag before trading costs and other factors. The wrapper removes private-key management, but that convenience comes at a material price.
ETHFI Brings a DeFi Protocol Token Into a Brokerage Account
The ether.fi product packages exposure to a token whose investment case has been changing alongside the protocol itself.
ether.fi began as a liquid-restaking platform but has expanded into a broader set of onchain financial services spanning staking, lending, swaps, payments and spending products. 21Shares argues that the protocol’s revenue mix is increasingly shifting beyond staking, giving ETHFI exposure to a wider financial ecosystem rather than a single DeFi activity.
The ETP changes the route investors use to obtain that exposure. Instead of opening a crypto account, acquiring ETHFI and managing a wallet, investors can hold the security through the same type of brokerage account used for conventional investments.
21Shares’ product page currently reports approximately $11 million in assets under management and a 2.50% product fee. It also reports a variable staking yield that accrues daily to the ETP’s net asset value. The yield is not fixed and should not be treated as a guaranteed offset to the management fee.
The underlying risk remains tied to ETHFI. Easier custody does not remove token volatility, protocol-specific risks or ether.fi’s dependence on maintaining activity across its expanding suite of products.
Zcash Gets a European Exchange-Traded Wrapper
The ZCASH product targets a very different thesis.
Zcash is built around optional transaction privacy, allowing users to use shielded transactions that can limit the information publicly exposed onchain. ZEC also has a maximum supply of 21 million coins, giving the asset a scarcity structure that resembles Bitcoin at the issuance level while serving a different use case.
The launch is particularly timely because regulated investment access to ZEC has expanded rapidly.
Grayscale launched its U.S.-listed Zcash product on NYSE Arca in August, giving American investors a regulated route to spot ZEC exposure. 21Shares is now extending exchange-traded access in Europe through Euronext Paris and Amsterdam. The products operate under different regulatory structures, but together they give Zcash listed investment vehicles on both sides of the Atlantic.
That is notable for a privacy-focused cryptocurrency, a category that has historically faced more friction with centralized exchanges and regulated financial intermediaries than Bitcoin or Ethereum.
The question is whether easier brokerage access creates persistent demand or simply captures interest generated by ZEC’s recent market performance.
The Same ETP Wrapper Covers Two Different Bets
Launching ETHFI and ZCASH together should not obscure how different the underlying exposures are.
ETHFI is primarily a protocol bet. Its investment case increasingly depends on whether ether.fi can turn its staking base into sustained activity across lending, payments, swaps and other financial services.
ZEC is primarily a privacy and monetary-asset bet. Demand depends more heavily on the value investors place on transaction privacy, cryptographic development and a capped token supply.
Both shift custody away from the investor. Buyers avoid managing wallets and private keys, but instead rely on the ETP issuer, institutional custodians and securities-market infrastructure.
Neither wrapper removes crypto volatility. The ETP simplifies access to the underlying asset; it does not transform its economic risk into that of a conventional equity or bond.
That makes future flows useful for different reasons. ETHFI can test whether investors want exchange-traded exposure to individual DeFi protocols. ZCASH can provide evidence of whether demand for privacy-focused assets extends into conventional investment accounts.
A 2.50% Fee Sets a Higher Performance Hurdle
The fee deserves particular attention because crypto ETP competition has pushed costs sharply lower at the largest end of the market.
21Shares’ Core Bitcoin and Core Ethereum products currently charge just 0.10% under a temporary fee waiver, while its Ethereum Staking ETP carries a 1.49% fee. Several of the issuer’s more specialized products have historically charged 2.50%.
That creates a clear divide in the product lineup.
Bitcoin and Ethereum have enough scale and issuer competition to support increasingly aggressive pricing. A niche token ETP must spread custody, administration, market-making and other product costs across a potentially much smaller asset base.
For ETHFI, staking income could partly offset the product fee when yields are positive, although both staking returns and token prices can change. ZCASH does not have the same staking mechanism, leaving the management charge as a more direct drag on exposure.
The 2.50% price therefore raises the bar for both products: convenience and regulated brokerage access need to be valuable enough for investors to accept a substantially higher recurring cost than they would pay for mainstream crypto ETPs.
Crypto ETP Competition Is Moving Down the Asset Curve
European crypto ETPs have already expanded well beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum. 21Shares’ own catalogue includes single-asset exposure across numerous networks and tokens, and company filings show that a 2.50% fee is already used across several specialized products.
The harder question is whether simply making an asset available through an ETP is enough to build a durable market around it.
ETHFI and ZEC provide an interesting test because their investment cases have little in common. One derives much of its relevance from activity inside an evolving DeFi ecosystem. The other is built around privacy technology and monetary scarcity.
For ETHFI, assets under management, secondary-market liquidity and the contribution of staking income to NAV will show whether investors are willing to pay for packaged DeFi exposure.
For ZCASH, net flows and trading liquidity will offer a cleaner measure of whether renewed interest in privacy assets is translating into longer-term investment demand.
Bitcoin and Ethereum proved that crypto can support large exchange-traded investment markets. ETHFI and ZCASH will test something harder: how far down the crypto asset curve that model can travel before higher fees and narrower demand begin to limit its scale.
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