Financial services giant Fidelity Investments is seeking regulatory approval to launch an exchange-traded fund (ETF) holding the Ethereum cryptocurrency, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. The filing comes a day after BlackRock filed for its own Ethereum ETF.
The proposed Fidelity Ethereum Fund tracks the price of Ethereum, which is native to the Ethereum blockchain network. ETF shares trade on the Cboe BZX exchange under the ticker symbol ETHF.
Fidelity ETF's objective is to “seek to track the performance of Ethereum as measured by the performance of the Fidelity Ethereum Index”. The index is based on the USD price of Ether on major Ether trading platforms.
“They are the seventh filer for SpaceEthereum,” tweeted James Seifert, referring to previous filings by BlackRock, Grayscale, 21Shares/ARK, VanEck and Hashdex.
BlackRock is the most prominent provider, bringing the scale and expertise necessary to manage more than $9.4 trillion in assets. Hashdex joined the fray in August.
The filing comes as the SEC is under intense pressure to approve a spot bitcoin ETF after it approved futures-based bitcoin ETFs last year. Proponents of cryptocurrencies argue that spot ETFs offer mainstream investors a safer way to gain exposure to digital assets.
Late Friday, the SEC announced that it was delaying its decision on two positions after pushing Hashdex earlier this week for Bitcoin ETFs — from Franklin Templeton and GlobalX.
“Thus, US retail investors did not have a US-regulated, US exchange-traded vehicle to gain exposure to losses. [Ethereum]”Meanwhile, investors in other countries … have been able to use products listed and traded on traditional exchanges,” Fidelity said in its proposal.
The proposed Ethereum ETF faces regulatory hurdles similar to previous attempts at bitcoin ETFs. The SEC typically requires watch-sharing agreements between the ETF-listing exchange and the spot market on the asset. It's unclear whether the SEC considers the ether futures market, which launched in 2021, mature enough to meet that requirement.
Fidelity, which manages more than $11 trillion in client assets, has been growing its cryptocurrency business. The company In 2018, it launched institutional crypto trading and regulatory services. Rival asset managers, including Invesco and Galaxy Digital, have also offered crypto ETFs this year.
This story was prepared by Decrypt AI from sources cited in the article, and Fact confirmed By Ryan Ozawa.
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