The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has received five 19b-4 forms from people who want to start Ethereum (ETH) spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs). This is a very important step.
An expert at Bloomberg Intelligence named James Seyffart said that the applicants—Fidelity, VanEck, Invesco/Galaxy, Ark Invest, and Franklin Templeton—turned in their Amended 19b-4 forms just 25 minutes before the deadline.
Ethereum Staking Excluded From ETFs
People who want to change the rules for the SEC must fill out the 19b-4 form. The people who wanted to apply for the ETF used the form to leave out ETH staking from their investment goods. This move was expected by experts, who made sure that neither makers nor users can use these ETFs for Ethereum staking.
The head of firmwide research at Galaxy Digital, Alex Thorn, said on May 21 that the SEC might label staked ETH as a security as part of the process for approving these ETFs. Seyffart pointed out that the chance of the ETH ETF being approved stays at 75%, even though the 19b-4 forms were turned in on time. Also, he said that the spot ETH ETFs might not be available in the U.S. for a few weeks or longer.
On May 21, analyst published a related story that said analysts from the Singapore-based trading company QCP Capital said that the approval of spot Ethereum ETFs could push the price of the asset above $5,000.
