US securities regulator allows exchanges to list Ether ETFs
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The news: The US Securities and Exchange Commission has approved applications from Nasdaq, CBOE and NYSE to list exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tied to the price of Ether, paving the way for the products to begin trading later this year.
The numbers: Nine issuers including VanEck, ARK Investments/21Shares and BlackRock hope to launch ETFs tied to the second-largest cryptocurrency.
An array of investors, including hedge funds, wealth advisors and retail investors, have poured more than USD30 billion ($45.4 billion) into crypto ETFs after the SEC in January approved bitcoin ETFs.
The context: While the ETF issuers also need to separately get SEC approval before their products can launch, the green light for exchanges is a major surprise win for the cryptocurrency industry, which had expected the SEC to reject the filings.
The exchange applications had sought SEC approval for a rule change required to list new products, but the issuers still need the SEC to approve ETF registration statements detailing investor disclosures before they can start trading.
Sui Chung, CEO of CF Benchmarks, the index-provider for several of the Bitcoin and Ether ETFs, told Reuters Ether was more complex than Bitcoin and it could take months for the SEC to review the statements.
What they said: “The introduction of spot bitcoin ETFs has already demonstrated significant benefits for the digital assets and ETF space, and we believe that spot ether ETFs will similarly provide safeguards for US investors," Rob Marrocco, global head of ETP listings at Cboe Global Markets told Reuters.
