In the U.S., two major investment firms have filed applications with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to approve the listing of spot Ethereum ETF shares. The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) then filed applications with the regulator to include both investment products among the assets traded on the platform.
ARK Invest and 21Shares plan to launch the ARK 21Shares Ethereum ETF, a spot Ethereum ETF on the Cboe BZX exchange. This was disclosed in a filing made by the companies’ lawyers to the SEC.
The custodian of the investment product will be crypto exchange Coinbase, which will value the digital asset and measure its performance based on the CME CF Ether Reference Rate.
Over the next 24 hours, the SEC also received two 19b-4 applications from the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) asking the regulator to allow spot Ethereum ETFs from ARK Invest and VanEck to trade via the Cboe BZX Exchange.
ETH quotes reacted to the news with a brief surge. According to CoinMarketCap data, the ETH price rose about 3% from $1,623 to $1,669 before returning to the $1,620-1,640 range.
James Seyffart, ETF Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, says the race for spot Ethereum ETFs in the U.S. has officially begun. In his opinion, the regulator simply doesn’t have the option to ignore ARK and VanEck’s applications. That’s because the form 19b-4 filed by the CBOE requires the SEC to review it immediately. Seyffart says that in the coming days, we should expect applications for spot Ethereum ETFs from other major funds and companies as well.
However, the regulator may postpone a decision on Ethereum ETFs, just as it did on spot Bitcoin ETFs. After Grayscale defeated the SEC in court, the regulator postponed consideration of applications to launch spot Bitcoin ETFs from Bitwise, BlackRock, and Valkyrie until the end of October.
By the way, Arkham analysts claim that Grayscale holds BTC worth more than $16 billion. If the information is confirmed, the company will take the place of the second largest holder of Bitcoin in the world.
