Around six months back, the US Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC] approved spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds to start trading on the bourses. Fast forward to today, Ethereum ETFs have also successfully managed to get the green flag from the apex securities regulator.
A few hours back, the SEC gave its final nod and signaled that the registration forms of BlackRock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, 21Shares, Invesco, Galaxy Bitwise, and VanEck are now effective. Grayscale’s Ethereum Mini Trust and Ethereum Trust also secured the seal of approval.
The NYSE Arca and Chicago Board Options Exchange [CBOE] parallelly issued a handful of notifications highlighting that the funds will start trading on Tuesday, indicating that the SEC has signed off on the funds.
The latter exchange further alerted investors by asserting that Cboe conducts a single ‘New Issue Auction’ to open trading for new exchange-traded product issues at 9:30 AM ET.
BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust ETF is all set to trade under the ticker [ETHA]. The world’s largest asset manager’s Ether fund will bear a 0.25% sponsor fee. A one-year waiver is also in place, slashing the fee to 0.12% for the first $2.5 billion assets under management.
Jay Jacobs, BlackRock’s US Head of Thematic and Active ETFs asserted that Ethereum’s “appeal” lies in its decentralized nature and its potential to drive digital transformation in finance and other industries. He added,
"Our clients are increasingly interested in gaining exposure to digital assets through exchange-traded products (ETPs) which provide convenient access, liquidity and transparency."
Over the past 12 months, iShares has notably put more than 170 ETFs and ETPs to sea, including the iShares Bitcoin Trust [IBIT]. This fund, on its part, has been renewing its inflow streak of late. Over the past day, it registered a daily BTC flow of $523.3 million.
The staking tangent
At this juncture, It is also worth recalling that the ETF issuers had included staking components in their initial filings with the SEC, but subsequently removed it. Going forward, if they want to amalgamate options or staking for their spot Ethereum ETFs, they will yet again have to get the green flag from the SEC.
Via a post on X [formerly Twitter], Variant’s Chief Legal Officer Jake Chervinsky said,
“There's no good reason why the SEC should prevent ETH ETFs from staking. Staked ETH isn't a security, and investors can fully understand the risk of a staked product + decide for themselves if they want to take that risk. It'll take a while, but this is "when," not "if," imo.”
