Issuers of spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) expect to receive final approval from regulators imminently, according to an industry source familiar with the matter. This would set the stage for the ETFs to start listing as soon as next week.
Spot ETF issuers expect to receive final comments from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission by early next week and possibly as soon as July 12, according to the source, who declined to be identified because their discussions with issuers were private.
Several issuers — including VanEck and 21Shares — filed amended registrations this week in hopes of receiving the SEC’s final signoff to begin listing spot Ether (ETH) ETFs. In all, some eight spot issuers are awaiting regulatory approval.
Analysts expect that ETH ETFs could attract billions of dollars of inflows in the months after listing, potentially driving significant appreciation of Ether’s spot price. According to crypto analyst Mark Dunleavy, ETH is “less available on exchanges, mean[ing] thinner order books and less to purchase,” and thus its spot price will be even more responsive to buying demand from ETFs than BTC’s.
Related: Ethereum ETF inflows could hit $10B, sending ETH to new highs — Analyst
One significant source of demand is crypto-native hedge funds, which have self-custodied billions of dollars worth of spot ETH for years and are now reaching out to institutional market makers, such as Virtu Financial, to swap those holdings for ETF shares, according to the source.
The source said upward of a dozen crypto-native funds with total assets under management exceeding $1 billion each have expressed interest in such an exchange.
Once listed, the spot ETH ETFs will complement an existing slate of publicly traded crypto funds, including the approximately a dozen spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs that began trading after receiving regulatory clearance in January.
More than $50 billion worth of BTC is currently held by ETFs. Dunleavy predicts that ETH ETFs could attract up to $10 billion in inflows in the coming months. Spot Solana (SOL) ETFs may soon join the ranks as well, with at least two that could begin trading early next year.
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