SEC Calls for Comments on Three Proposed Ethereum ETFs

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is asking the public to comment on three proposed Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs)—the latest movement from the regulator for the much-anticipated investment products.

After issuing a series of delays in its decision making on Ethereum spot ETFs, Wall Street’s top regulator said Tuesday that Grayscale Investments, Fidelity, and Bitwise are now subject to a three-week comment period.

This is a standard part of the procedure for fund managers seeking approval from the SEC for an ETF, and the same thing happened with the spot Bitcoin ETF applications—U.S. citizens and organizations wrote to the SEC voicing their respective opinions on the proposed investment products.

All three fund managers have proposed a spot ETH ETF to the regulator. The idea would be that they would hold ETH and sell shares that track the asset’s price. 

In January, the SEC approved 11 spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs, allowing them to trade after a decade of denials. The investment vehicles now trade on stock exchanges and give traditional investors the ability to buy shares that track the price of the cryptocurrency. 

And with huge inflows, they have been hugely popular. 

Many of the same fund managers are now trying to get approval from the regulator to do the same with ETH, the second biggest digital coin by market cap. 

British multinational bank Standard Chartered said in a January report that it expected ETH ETFs to get approval from the SEC by the May deadline. 

However, industry analysts have since said that the regulator’s approval of the products is less likely, and posited that a delay that puts space between Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs would be a good thing.

The price of ETH now stands slightly below that at $3,314, per CoinGecko data. Unlike BTC, it is still very far off its 2021 all-time high of $4,878.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.