With a total of 11 ETH-based submissions made in less than a week, the US Securities and Exchange Commission has recently been overwhelmed with requests for Ethereum (ETH) futures exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
A Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether ETF with identical weights is proposed in the most recent ProShares ETF proposal, which was submitted on August 3. The fund, per the filing, will monitor "the performance of holding long positions in the nearest maturing monthly bitcoin and ether futures contracts."
Fund manager ProShares has submitted four unique registrations for ether-based ETFs in the last few days, including a dual Bitcoin and Ether futures strategy ETF, a short Ether strategy ETF, and an Ether strategy ETF, according to Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart.
“Another one.... 11 ETFs Filed... Proshares filed for a 4th ETF with Ethereum futures. This one is an equal weight #Bitcoin & #Ethereum ETF just like Bitwise's filing which dropped an hour ago.” Seyffart added on Twitter.
Eleven ETF filings for futures products including Ether have been made during the course of the previous seven days. On July 28, Volatility Shares filed their application for the Volatility Shares Ether Strategy ETF, which served as the catalyst for the subsequent wave of applications for ether-based ETFs.
Bear in mind that the SEC has never approved an ETF that tracks Ethereum futures contracts. The ETFs for Bitcoin futures, on the other hand, have existed since October 2021.
The Ether ETFs will debut 75 days after their separate filing dates, with Volatility Shares ETF being the first to do so on October 12 if the SEC does not reject any of the applications.
The price of futures contracts is tracked by futures ETF products, although the latter really requires the issuer to buy the underlying asset, which is the main distinction between futures and spot ETF products. Since the fund manager actually purchases and holds the underlying asset, spot ETFs are generally considered to be more reliable.
The rush of Ether-specific applications follows a flurry of filings from big asset management companies looking to introduce specific Bitcoin ETFs. BlackRock, the biggest asset manager in the world, is one of the companies vying to launch the country's first Bitcoin ETF.