Fidelity Applies For Spot Ethereum Etf
- Posted on November 20, 2023 12:14 AM
- Cryipto News
- 198 Views
Fidelity has applied for an Ether exchange-traded fund (ETF) just a few days after BlackRock submitted an application for iShares Ethereum Trust.
Asset management firm Fidelity, overseeing $4.5 trillion, has become the latest company to request approval for a spot Ether (ETH) exchange-traded fund (ETF).
In an application submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on November 17, Fidelity requested the listing and trading of shares of the Fidelity Ether Fund on the Cboe BZX Exchange. The application included the following statements:
"Each share of the Trust will represent a fractional undivided beneficial interest in the net assets of the Trust. The assets of the Trust will consist of ETH held by the Custodian."
Update: @Fidelity joins the spot #ethereum ETF race by filing a 19b-4 with @CBOE https://t.co/rxNEzpzh3g pic.twitter.com/o96XspPDEP
— James Seyffart (@JSeyff) November 17, 2023
Filing stated that U.S. citizens lacked a low-risk method for ETH transactions.
"U.S. investors lacked a tool regulated and traded on a U.S. exchange for trading ETH." The company also emphasized the importance of an ETF, arguing that existing methods of accessing digital assets carried various risks. On the other hand, the investment giant noted that European investors could access products traded on regulated exchanges providing access to various spot crypto assets.
Furthermore, the filing suggested that if there were an Ether ETF available to U.S. citizens, significant losses incurred by now-defunct firms like FTX, Celsius Network, and BlockFi could have been largely prevented:
"If a Spot ETH ETP were available, at least a portion of the billions tied up in those transactions might still be in the brokerage accounts of U.S. investors." Fidelity's application comes on the heels of BlackRock's formal application to the SEC on November 16 for the iShares Ethereum Trust, a spot Ether ETF.
A week prior, BlackRock registered iShares Ethereum Trust with the Delaware Division of Corporations, nearly six months after submitting its application for a spot Bitcoin ETF.
Fidelity is the seventh firm to apply for an Ether ETF, joining other applicants such as VanEck, 21Shares & ARK, Hashdex, Grayscale, and Invesco & Galaxy.
