BlackRock’s Spot Ethereum ETF plan confirmed after Nasdaq filing

Blackrock's plans for a Spot Ether (ETH) exchange-traded fund (ETF) have just been confirmed, in a Form 19b-4 filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on November 9.

Nasdaq has filed a Form 19b-4 with the securities regulator on behalf of the $9-trillion asset management firm for a proposed ETF called the iShares Ethereum Trust.

The move shows BlackRock's desire to expand beyond Bitcoin (BTC) with its ETF ambitions.

Previously, on November 9, Blackrock announced that the corporate entity iShares Ethereum Trust was registered in Delaware, the first hint that an Ethereum ETF file could be in place soon.

Update: BlackRock #Ethereum ETF confirmed. Just filed a 19b-4 with Nasdaq pic.twitter.com/pLhuhhK7jo

— James Seyff (@JSeyff) November 9, 2023

BlackRock and other financial firms have shown interest in cryptocurrency-backed ETFs over the past few months.

Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seifert noted that there are at least five firms in the running to win SEC approval for spot ether ETFs.

Related: Ethereum futures ETFs get warm welcome on first day of trading

These include VanEick, ARK 21Shares, Invesco, Grayscale and Hashdex.

There are 5 live place ETH records that I know of: @vaneck_us @ARKInvest/ @21Shares @hashdex @InvescoUS/ @galaxyhq anddd @Grayscale's $ETHE to convert file.

In a different order.

— James Seyff (@JSeyff) November 9, 2023

ETH rose 8.9% to $2,080 on news that BlackRock is moving forward with its plans for the iShares Ethereum Trust, and is up 10.1% in the past 24 hours, CoinGecko reports.

The surge in price has helped ETH regain some market dominance over BTC, outperforming ETH in recent months.

ETH's market dominance now sits at 17%, up from 1.3% percentage points before the news.

Magazine: Bitcoin ETF: Wall Street's way to crypto