What looked unlikely less than three months ago becomes a reality today. The first-ever spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds will begin trading in the U.S. Tuesday morning when the opening bell rings at 9:30 a.m. EST.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission allowed S1 registration statements to become effective on Monday afternoon, which marked the final sign-off for those funds representing the world's second-largest cryptocurrency to begin trading.
“While many see bitcoin's key appeal in its scarcity, many find Ethereum's appeal in its utility,” Jay Jacobs, BlackRock's U.S. head of thematic and active ETFs, said Monday in a post on X. “You could think of Ethereum as a global platform for applications that run without decentralized intermediaries.”
Eight issuers will debut their ether ETFs to institutional investors and retail traders. Here is a rundown of the issuers, the ETF's exchange and ticker it will trade on, as well as its post-waiver fee.
- Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust (NYSE: ETH), 0.15% post-waiver fee
- Grayscale Ethereum Trust (NYSE: ETHE), 2.5%
- Franklin Ethereum ETF (CBOE: EZET), 0.19%
- VanEck Ethereum ETF (CBOE: ETHV), 0.20%
- Bitwise Ethereum ETF (NYSE: ETHW), 0.20%
- 21Shares Core Ethereum ETF (CBOE: CETH), 0.21%
- Fidelity Ethereum Fund (CBOE: FETH), 0.25%
- iShare Ethereum Trust (NASDAQ: ETHA), 0.25%
- Invesco Galaxy Ethereum ETF (CBOE: QETH), 0.25%
Six of the funds will use Coinbase as a custodian. VanEck is using Gemini as a custodian, while Fidelity is self-custodying its ether.
Spot Ethereum ETFs vs. Spot Bitcoin ETFs
While most believe Ethereum ETFs will generate less inflows than spot Bitcoin ETFs, at least early on, their value is still significant.
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Perfumo predicted $750 million to $1 billion of net inflows per month for the first five to six months, The Block previously reported — which matches up with Citigroup's projection of between $4.7 billion and $5.4 billion over the first six months of trading.
Eleven spot bitcoin ETFs, which launched in the U.S. in January, have amassed a nearly $60 billion combined market cap and $330 billion in cumulative volume.
The spot Ethereum market is less than a third of the size of the bitcoin market, according to Nate Geraci, president of The ETF Store.
“In my mind, that's a reasonable proxy for what to expect from spot ether ETFs,” Geraci said Monday in an X Spaces event hosted by The Block. “I think we'll see about a third of the demand of what we've seen from spot bitcoin ETFs.”
Senior Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas told The Block in May that Ethereum ETFs may get 10% to 15% of the assets that bitcoin products received. “That would put them at like $5 to $8 billion, which, again, for any normal launch in the first couple of years. That's pretty good,” he said.
The price of ether traded at around $3,474 at the time of writing, according to The Block's ETH price page. The crypto is up about 47% year to date.