The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reportedly reached out to major U.S. exchanges to update their applications to list and trade spot Ether (ETH) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from asset managers.
According to a May 21 Reuters report, SEC officials contacted the Nasdaq, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to update and change existing spot Ether ETF applications before a regulatory deadline. On May 23, the commission must decide whether to approve or deny VanEck’s spot Ether ETF after delaying the process for 240 days.
Requesting U.S. exchanges to make such changes could be a sign of regulatory approval. On May 20, two ETF analysts raised their odds that the SEC would approve a spot ETF tied to Ether from 25% to 75% after “hearing chatter” that applicants should expect to accelerate their 19b-4 filings. The exchanges must file 19b-4s and S-1 registration statements with the SEC before any spot Ether ETFs can be listed.
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If the SEC approves VanEck’s application, it could lead to approvals for spot Ether ETFs offered by ARK 21Shares, BlackRock, Fidelity, Hashdex and Invesco Galaxy. Fidelity has already amended its S-1 filing to include that the Ether tied to the investment vehicle will not be staked, suggesting such a requirement may be necessary for approval.
SEC filings, public statements from Chair Gary Gensler and reports of investigations previously suggested that the commission may have been preparing to deny spot Ether ETF applications, which was still a possibility at the time of publication. The commission started approving investment vehicles tied to ETH futures in October 2023 and spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs in January.
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