Grayscale, a prominent cryptocurrency investment firm, has relinquished all rights to the post-Merge proof-of-work (PoW) Ethereum tokens (ETHPoW) only one year after the Ethereum Merge.
Grayscale stated on September 18 that it had “irrevocably abandoned” all rights to ETHPoW tokens on behalf of the record date shareholders of each product.
Grayscale determined after a comprehensive evaluation that ETHPoW tokens have not developed meaningful liquidity and that the products’ custodian does not support such tickets. The company wrote:
“As such, it is not possible to exercise the rights to acquire and sell the ETHPoW tokens, and on behalf of the record date shareholders, Grayscale is abandoning the rights to these assets.”
More than a year has passed since the Ethereum Merge, the event that signified Ethereum’s complete transition from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS) before Grayscale decided to drop the rights for ETHPoW tokens. The Merge occurred on September 15, 2022, splintering the Ethereum blockchain into Ether and EthereumPoW (ETHW) tokens.
Grayscale considered acquiring EthereumPoW and selling ETHW for record-date shareholders after the Merge. 180 days after the Merge, the company took an additional six months to decide whether to acquire those PoW tokens, citing uncertainty regarding ETHW token support by digital asset custodians and trading venues.
In contrast to Grayscale, some cryptocurrency investment firms, such as ETC Group, have attempted to establish dedicated EthereumPoW exchange-traded products (ETPs). Due to the lack of eligible custody providers, ETC Group terminated its PoW-based ZETW ETP six weeks after its introduction.
Grayscale’s ETHW decision was announced one day before The Wall Street Journal reported, citing a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, that the company has launched a new Ether futures exchange-traded fund.
