U.S. SEC delays Grayscale spot Ethereum ETF

by

The SEC’s review process for Grayscale’s application to change its trust into an Ethereum ETF has been postponed in the United States.

The SEC has postponed making a decision about allowing U.S. stock markets to offer and trade Ethereum (ETH) ETFs proposed by Grayscale until June 23rd.

The Commission decides to give itself more time to review the proposed rule change, along with Amendment No. 1, and the concerns brought up regarding them.

U.S. SEC website

In October, Grayscale requested approval from the SEC through a Form 19b-4 submission to the NYSE Arca, in order to change its Ethereum Trust (ETHE) into an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that directly holds Ethereum (ETH) spots. Similarly, they went through this process for their GBTC product and were able to transform it into a spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETF back in January.

After the SEC’s recent action, Grayscale submitted Form S-3 to register with the U.S. Securities Act in order to expand its ETHE offering.

Today, we submitted a Form S-3 registration application to the Securities and Exchange Commission for Grayscale Ethereum Trust’s shares, represented by the ticker symbol $ETHE. This action signifies progress towards upgrading ETHE into an Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) according to the Securities Act of 1933. (1/6)— Grayscale (@Grayscale) April 23, 2024

The Wall Street regulatory’s website documents indicated that an identical application from asset manager Franklin Templeton was postponed until June 11, according to a previous report by crypto.news on April 23rd.

BlackRock, Fidelity, and VanEck, like other filers, have experienced delays in their requests for spot Ethereum ETFs from the SEC. This delay gives the SEC more time to determine if they will approve or reject these proposals. Some analysts believe that the inclusion of a staking feature in certain applications may raise concerns for SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, who has consistently expressed his view that many cryptocurrencies qualify as securities.

After that point, investors have poured over $12 billion into Bitcoin ETFs collectively, even as Grayscale’s fund experienced significant withdrawals. This week, Grayscale saw outflows amounting to $1.6 billion, reducing its managed assets by half.

Read More

2024-04-23 23:32