- The SEC has finalised the approval of Spot Ethereum ETFs, paving the way for easier trading of ETH in the US.
- The ETFs, involving major firms like BlackRock and Fidelity, launch tomorrow at 9:30 AM without staking options.
- Despite a cool market reaction with a slight price dip, BlackRock points to Ethereum’s utility.
And it’s finally done. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has given the Spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs) the final nod of approval. Now Americans will have access to trade ETH with ease…as the second largest digital asset follows in the footsteps of Bitcoin.
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Bloomberg Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas was one of the first to break the news – although at this point it was largely expected that everything would be going ahead. He said, as indicated approval is here with the submission of the required 424(b) forms, adding, “the last step = all systems go for tomorrow’s 930am launch. Game on.”
Funds are now ready for trading 09:30 AM US Eastern Time, including funds from BlackRock, Fidelity, Bitwise, 21Shares, VanEck, Invesco, Franklin and Grayscale. The funds won’t include staking and there is no indication that this will be added anytime soon – unlike Hong Kong which is reportedly considering allowing staking for its local Ether funds.
The SEC Took Its Time with This Decision
After a long, drawn-out process with the Bitcoin funds, most observers didn’t expect a fast approval process for Ether – mainly due to the stance of the SEC. There had also been uncertainty about whether the regulator considers ETH to be a security.
In the end, the process, which the SEC did not seem to be in a rush to complete, was cut short. Analysts had remarked in mid-May that the odds of approval had significantly increased. And, voilà, two months later, the funds are finally set to start trading.
ETH reacted cool initially on the approval, with the price dipping by 2.6% on the 24-hour timeframe. At the time of writing ETH trades hands for US$3,470 (AU$5,230) as per data from CoinMarketCap.
BlackRock: BTC = Scarcity, ETH = Utility
The largest Bitcoin ETF is of course that of BlackRock. The iShares IBIT has currently US$18.97bn (AU$28.58bn) in assets under management (AUM), far outpacing the second-best performer, the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund FBTC with US$9.97bn (AU$15.02bn) in AUM.
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And it looks like BlackRock is again trying to take the lead for Ether funds too, heavily advertising their fund.
In a promotional video shared by Balchunas, they compared ETH to a platform with applications that allow utility, while Bitcoin may be interesting for its scarcity. In the “pitch to normies” as Balchunas called it, BlackRock said, “you could think of ethereum as a global platform for applications that run without decentralized intermediaries”.
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