After a long period of speculation and uncertainty, Spot Ethereum ETFs (exchange-traded funds) will officially launch next week, on Tuesday, July 23, 2024. This significant development was announced by the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE).
Five Spot Ethereum ETFs to Go Live on Cboe Next Week
On Friday, July 19, the Chicago Board Options Exchange Posted new issuance notifications, announcing the launch of the highly anticipated Ether exchange-traded funds. The exchange stated that five spot Ethereum ETFs, including Fidelity (FETH), VanEck (ETHV), 21Shares ((CETH)Invesco (QETH) and Franklin Templeton (EZET) are expected to launch next Tuesday.
Each Cboe notification stated:
We are pleased to announce that one (1) Exchange Traded Product (“ETP”) will be listed on Cboe and will begin trading as a new issuance on July 23, 2024, pending regulatory effectiveness.
The announcement is in line with the latest in a long line of predictions from Bloomberg ETF expert Eric Balchunas, who put forward a possible launch date of July 23, 2024. This came after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reportedly asked issuers to file their final S-1 filings.
The commission still had to approve the S-1 forms so that issuers could register their spot Ethereum ETFs for public sale. It’s worth noting, however, that the Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the 19b-4 forms from ETH ETF issuers until May 2024.
Additionally, most ETH ETF issuers have disclosed their funds’ management fees, with most temporarily waiving or discounting their fees. It will be interesting to see how these fees play into market share distribution once spot Ethereum ETFs begin trading.
Notably, asset manager BlackRock plans to charge a 0.25% management fee for its spot ETH ETF, ETHA, according to its final S-1 registration statement. The firm, however, announced the intention to reduce the fee to 0.12% during the fund’s initial launch period until the ETF has been in operation for 12 months or reaches $2.5 billion in net assets.
ETH price at a glance
The announcement of the spot Ethereum ETF had little impact on the price of etherwhich seems to be priced in already. At the time of writing, the price of ETH is trading at around $3,485, which represents a 2% increase in the last 24 hours.
The inflow of capital into spot Ethereum ETFs is expected to have a positive impact on the cryptocurrency’s price — and potentially the broader market. This prediction isn’t too far-fetched, given the apparent impact of spot ETFs on Bitcoin’s value so far in 2024.
The price of Ethereum on the daily timeframe | Source: ETHUSDT chart on TradingView
Main image from iStock, chart from TradingView