United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler suggested that the regulator might approve the final listings and trading shares of spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) within three months.
During a Senate Banking Committee hearing on June 13, which discussed U.S. President Joe Biden’s 2025 budget requests for the SEC, Gensler indicated that the commission could approve S-1 registration statements for asset managers “sometime over the course of this summer.”
Previously, on May 23, the SEC had approved 19b-4 filings from eight companies. However, these applications need S-1 approvals before the ETFs can trade on U.S. exchanges.
Senator Bill Hagerty from Tennessee questioned Gensler about why the commission hadn’t “fully approved Ether ETFs.”
He accused the SEC chair of not prioritizing a “constructive set of rules of the road for the crypto industry.”
While Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Rostin Behnam responded by affirming Ether was a commodity, Gensler did not directly address the question but shifted the focus to Ether ETFs.
Gensler stated, “The Ethereum exchange-traded product filings that were in front of us from stock exchanges — I think there were eight or nine of them — were all jointly approved.
Individual issuers still are working through the registration process that’s working smoothly, and I would envision sometime over the course of this summer…”
In a June 5 interview, Gensler mentioned that final approvals for spot Ether ETFs would “take some time” following the greenlighting of 19b-4 filings.
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Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas suggested that launching the Ether products on U.S. exchanges in June was feasible, but he predicted final SEC approvals by July 4.
“July was and is a complete guess,” said ETF analyst James Seyffart on X in response to Gensler’s comments.
“But I was more confident in saying that ETH ETFs will launch at some point this summer. That was sort of a given.”
On January 10, the SEC approved 194-b filings for spot Bitcoin ETFs, which began trading on January 11 following the approval of the effective S-1 prospectuses.
BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust was among the first ETFs to start trading on the Nasdaq.
The SEC has approved 19b-4 filings from asset managers including Fidelity, Grayscale, Bitwise, VanEck, Ark, Invesco Galaxy, and Franklin Templeton.
It remains uncertain which company will be first to launch once the S-1 registration statements are approved.
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