SEC Delays Grayscale's Ethereum Spot ETF Proposal

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has postponed its decision on Grayscale's Ethereum spot ETF proposal to 2024.

SEC delays Grayscale's Ethereum spot ETF proposal. Photo: CryptoSlate

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced a 45-day extension to review Grayscale's Ethereum spot ETF proposal, with the new deadline set for January 25, 2024.

Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart noted that the SEC's announcement of this delay was somewhat predictable, given the upcoming deadline of December 6 (U.S. time) for the SEC's consideration of Grayscale's Ethereum spot ETF proposal.

Grayscale first submitted its application for an Ethereum spot ETF at the beginning of October 2023. Specifically, the company aims to convert its Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) into an ETF, enabling investors to directly convert trust shares into ETH, thus addressing the price differential between ETHE and ETH due to the lack of a conversion mechanism.

Proposed Ethereum spot ETFs awaiting SEC approval. Source: Bloomberg (05/12/2023)

Additionally, Grayscale also has a proposal to convert its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into a Bitcoin spot ETF, which is also awaiting SEC approval.

To date, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has not approved any spot ETF proposals for cryptocurrencies, citing concerns about market manipulation and fraud prevention.

However, with the high likelihood of major Wall Street entities securing approval for Bitcoin spot ETFs in early January 2024, Bitcoin has shown strong growth over the past two months, surpassing the $44,000 mark in the early hours of December 6.

Meanwhile, Ethereum has also established a new high for 2023 at $2,309.

4-hour chart of the ETH/USDT pair on Binance at 05:30 AM on 06/12/2023