Bitwise recently amended its spot Ether ETF form to disclose that Pantera Capital is interested in a bulk purchase. According to the filing of the amended S-1 registration statement,
“Pantera Capital Management LP, through one or more of its affiliated investment funds, has indicated an interest in purchasing an aggregate of up to $100 million of Shares in this offering from Authorized Participants or in the marketplace through broker-dealers.”
That being said, it should be noted that indications of interest are not binding agreements or commitments to purchase. This means Pantera could deviate from its word and purchase more shares, fewer shares, or no shares at all.
If Pantera Capital ends up honoring its interest, it will be barred from selling any purchased shares for six months in the open market. It can dispose of them via a redemption transaction with one or more authorized participants.
S-1 forms are usually submitted by companies to the SEC before securities begin trading. Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart pointed out that Bitwise is one of the first companies to file an amended form encapsulating changes from the SEC's first round of comments.
Opining on when to expect the official launch, Seyffart said,
“No way to know when these things will launch based off of this filing. Might not require any additional updates, might require tweaks. But they need final SEC approval. Launch timing will mostly be up to the SEC. Eric Balchunas & I *think* they SHOULD launch before July 4th.”
In a mid-June hearing of the Senate Banking Committee, SEC chief Gary Gensler said that he expects the commission to approve S-1 registration statements for asset managers’ Ethereum ETFs “sometime over the course of this summer.”
In the latest filing, Bitwise also indicated a seed investment. Per the filing,
“Bitwise Investment Manager, LLC, an affiliate of the Sponsor, is expected to purchase the initial Baskets of Shares for $2,500,000, at a per-Share price of $25 for these 100,000 Shares (the “Seed Baskets”).”
