The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has postponed its decision on the approval of BlackRock’s Ethereum ETF.
Ethereum ETF
This is the second postponement for BlackRock’s iShares ETF. The first was in January, shortly after Bitcoin ETFs were approved. The SEC can postpone its decision up to three times before having to decide.
The deadline will be May 23. It will concern VanEck’s Ethereum ETF application. Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart believes May 23 is the “only date that counts” :
For him, “all decisions before this date will be postponements”. “Personally, I can’t imagine them rejecting VanEck’s Ethereum ETF and then approving competitors’ ETFs.”
Note that the SEC will launch a public consultation on whether it should approve Ethereum ETFs or not. Concerns relate in particular to the possibilities of fraud and manipulation linked to the Proof-of-Stake mechanism.
Another thing to note, ETF requests assume that Ethereum would be a “commodity”. Here is what we can read in the SEC press release published this Monday March 4:
“On November 21, 2023, Nasdaq filed an ETF application with the SEC to offer shares of the iShares Ethereum Trust for listing under the name Nasdaq Commodity-Based Trust Shares. »
However, SEC President Gary Gensler has always refused to treat Ethereum as a “commodity”. Here are his statements following the backward validation of Bitcoin ETFs:
“It is important to note that the Commission’s decision is limited to ETFs backed by a ‘commodity’, bitcoin, and not a ‘security’. It should in no way signal the Commission’s desire to approve ETFs for crypto-assets [Ethereum] which fall under securities laws. »
No ETH ETF before 2025?
Legal director of crypto company Variant Jake Chervinsky doubts that an ETH ETF can be approved this year:
The SEC has drawn a lot of political criticism for approving BTC ETFs, even though the court practically forced it to do so. »
For him, the SEC will have to be pushed against the wall again by a court decision. Indeed, Bitcoin ETFs would probably not have seen the light of day if the Columbia court had not given the green light to the transformation of Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust into an ETF.
Jake Chervinsky added, however, that it is reasonable to think that the question is not whether ” if “ Ethereum ETFs will see the light of day, but ” When “.
Ethereum was not affected by the postponement of the SEC decision. It is trading around $3,700, 30% below its 2021 record.
The ETH/BTC pair is still down 34% compared to 2021. Bitcoin, for its part, is a hair away from its historic record, galvanized by the tens of billions of dollars channeled via ETFs.
Don’t miss our article: Bitcoin vs. Ethereum
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