Grayscale Announces Initial Fee for US Ethereum ETP.
Grayscale Announces High Rewards Distribution for Ethereum Staking Exchange Traded Fund (ETF)
Shareholders of the Greyscale Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHE) will receive approximately $0.08 of the proceeds from the sale of share awards, a payment based on the holdings registered at the close of the market on Tuesday, according to a press release published on Monday.
Grayscale launched activations for its Ethereum products on October 6, conducted through institutional custodians and third-party validation providers. The move made ETHE and Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust ETF (ETH) the first US-listed crypto ETPs vulnerable to ether staking.
Staking is the process of locking cryptocurrency onto a verified blockchain to secure the network in order to verify transactions and receive periodic rewards. In the case of Greyscale's Ethereum Trust ETF, rewards are converted to cash and distributed to investors in dollars instead of being paid out in Ether (ETH).
Greyscale funds operate outside of the Investment Company Act of 1940, the main law governing US ETFs, a structure that allows for overlap but retains the same regulatory protections as traditional US ETFs.
In the year Founded in 2013, Greyscale Investments is a digital asset manager that supports crypto investment products and has approximately $31 billion in assets under management, according to the company.
The ETF was up about 2% in the previous day's trading, according to Yahoo Financial data.
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US spot Ether ETFs and the push to staking
While Grayscale is currently the only US-based fund to offer Ether staking-related payments, several Ether ETFs from major asset managers are awaiting regulatory approval from the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
In March, Cboe BZX filed a regulatory amendment with US regulators to seek approval to increase its stake in the Fidelity Ethereum Fund. The proposal would allow the fund to share some or all of its ether through third-party providers, and follows a similar filing for the 21Shares Core Ethereum ETF in February.
In November, BlackRock registered an Ethereum exchange-traded fund stored in Delaware, an early step in the process of launching a staking-enabled product that will sit alongside its existing Ethereum ETF. The iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA), which launched in July 2024, currently does not include shares.
US spot Ether ETFs will begin trading in July 2024, making 2025 the first full calendar year they will be available to investors. During the year, the funds attracted an income of 9.6 billion dollars.
According to CoinMarketCap data, US spot Ether ETFs manage a total of about $18 billion in assets.
BlackRock's iShares Ethereum Trust ETF ( ETHA ) is the largest by market value at $11.1 billion, followed by Greyscale's ETHE at $4.1 billion and Greyscale's Ethereum Mini Trust ETF at around $1.5 billion.
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