Fidelity Investments has filed for a spot Ethereum exchange-traded fund (ETF), as per a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on November 17.
Cboe BZX has filed a 19b-4 filing detailing a proposed rule change that would allow the company to list and trade shares of Fidelity’s planned fund. The new Ethereum proposal is very similar to Fidelity’s spot Bitcoin ETF proposal, which was filed with the SEC in late June.
Both Fidelity filings follow similar filings from the company’s main competitor, BlackRock. BlackRock filed an S-1 filing for its spot Ethereum ETF just days ago on November 15, and filed for its spot Bitcoin ETF months earlier in June.
The short timing between the competing registrations can be explained by the exceptionally high reputation of each asset manager. BlackRock is the largest asset manager in the world, with $9 trillion in assets under management. Fidelity, on the other hand, is the third largest asset manager in the world, with $4.2 trillion in assets under management.
Other companies have applications pending
Several other asset managers have also filed for their own spot Bitcoin ETFs and spot Ethereum ETFs following the high-profile filings above.
The SEC is expected to approve or reject a Bitcoin ETF by January 10, 2024. That decision concerns a spot Bitcoin application from ARK Invest, which filed its application in May – about a month before BlackRock submitted its more influential application. The SEC could apply its decision to other pending ETF filings, many of which are intentionally similar, to meet the expected requirements.
Although the SEC will review all spot Ethereum ETFs separately from spot Bitcoin ETFs, the approval of one type of fund could pave the way for another.
It should be noted that while the SEC has not yet approved a Bitcoin or Ethereum spot ETF, it has approved futures ETFs of both types in recent months and years.
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