The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved a series of spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on Thursday.
The approval includes ETFs from VanEck, BlackRock, Fidelity, Grayscale, and others, paving the way for their trading on trading exchanges.
The SEC’s greenlight follows a bipartisan appeal from legislators urging the regulator to apply the same principles used for Bitcoin ETFs earlier this year.
Announced on May 23, this decision arrives amidst legislative efforts to define the regulatory roles of the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the crypto industry, with the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act still pending in the Senate.
Trading of the Ether ETFs hinges on the completion of their S-1 registration statements, despite the approval of their 19b-4 filings. This process could take from a few days to several months.
Historically, the SEC has greenlit such applications post-market close, with the industry eyeing the final deadline for the VanEck Ethereum ETF application for a potential decision.
The approval process is complex, often requiring multiple revisions before the S-1 forms are finalized.