Ethereum Spot ETF officially launched for trading in the United States

On July 23, 2024, the U.S. securities market witnessed an important moment: 9 Ether Spot ETFs officially began trading. This marks a new milestone stage for Ethereum digital assets.

These ETFs are distributed across different exchanges:

• The CBOE exchange has listed 5 ETFs, including products from 21Shares, Fidelity, Franklin, Invesco Galaxy, and VanEck.
• The Nasdaq Stock Exchange has listed BlackRock's iShares Ethereum Trust.
• The NYSE Arca platform has listed ETF products from Grayscale, ProShares, and Bitwise.

In addition, the regulators have also approved the conversion of the Grayscale Ethereum Trust into a Spot ETF.

On the first trading day, the total transaction volume of these ETFs reached $434 million within about 2 hours. Among them, Grayscale's products performed the best, attracting $177.2 million in inflows. In contrast, 21Shares' ETF had the lowest transaction volume, at only $4.69 million.

Industry analysts pointed out that the first-day trading volume of the Ethereum ETF, although considerable, is only about half of the first-day trading volume of the Bitcoin ETF. The opening prices of the ETFs vary significantly, ranging from $3.26 to $50.06.

It is worth noting that despite the start of ETF trading, the price performance of Ethereum itself has remained relatively stable. As of midnight Singapore time on July 24, the daily increase of ETH was only 0.46%, with a price around $3455.2.

These newly launched ETFs have some differences in their fee structures. The base fee for most products ranges from 0.2% to 0.25%, and some institutions also offer short-term fee waivers. For example, Fidelity waives management fees for the entire year of 2024, while Franklin waives fees until January 2025 under certain conditions.

It is worth mentioning that these ETFs are not currently participating in Ethereum staking activities. According to reports, some institutions have attempted to include staking in their ETFs, but regulatory authorities have rejected this due to concerns about the timeliness of redemptions.

Industry insiders generally believe that the launch of the Ethereum ETF marks a new stage in the development of blockchain digital assets. It provides investors with a way to access Ether through traditional financial instruments, which is expected to attract more capital into this field.

Research institutions predict that the Ethereum Spot ETF may attract between $15 billion and $20 billion in inflows in its first year, a figure comparable to the performance of the Bitcoin ETF within 7 months. This reflects the market's long-term optimism for Ethereum and its underlying technology.