The world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, has filed the S1 form with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a spot Ether exchange-traded fund (ETF).
The SEC-filed Form S-1 stated that the iShares Ethereum Trust, an Ether ETF, “aims to reflect the performance of the price of Ether generally.”
BlackRock associates the iShares trademark with its ETF products, including the iShares Bitcoin Trust, a Bitcoin ETF. Awarded by the trust to be the custodian of the underlying ETH is Coinbase.
BlackRock made this decision almost six months after submitting its spot Bitcoin ETF application and nearly a week after registering the iShares Ethereum Trust with the Delaware Division of Corporations.
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BlackRock initiated the spot Bitcoin ETF stampede in early 2023, illustrating the increasing institutional interest in the cryptocurrency market. It has now become one of an expanding group of institutions that have submitted applications for a spot ETH ETF within the past six months.
The ETF issuer must obtain SEC approval from the Trading and Markets division on its 19b-4 filing and the Corporate Finance division on its S-1 filing or prospectus to file for a spot ETF. This is a two-step process.
Early in November 2023, when the SEC approved Grayscale Investment‘s application to convert its Ethereum trust into an ETF, the spot Ethereum ETF stampede commenced.
The SEC denied the applications of numerous institutional behemoths for spot crypto ETFs during the previous bull cycle, arguing that the crypto market was too small to warrant such an instrument.
According to market commentators and ETF analysts, the likelihood of obtaining authorization for a spot Bitcoin ETF by early 2024 is 90%. Subsequently, approval for the spot ETH ETF could occur later.
The institutional rush into spot ETFs based on cryptocurrencies coincides with the crypto market’s recovery phase, during which it has regained a substantial portion of the territory it lost during the previous bear market.
