Amid the delay in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) decision on Ark Investment Management’s Bitcoin Cash exchange-traded fund (ETF), the company has proposed an investment vehicle with exposure to Ether (ETH).
In a Sept. 6 filing, Ark Invest and 21Shares asked the SEC to approve listing shares of an ETH Cash ETF on the Cboe BZX Exchange. The investment vehicle, called ARK 21Shares Ethereum ETF, will have cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase as its custodian and will measure Ether’s performance against the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s CF-Ether-dollar reference rate.
The proposal from Ark Invest and 21Shares is one of many cryptocurrency cash ETFs under review by the SEC. After asset manager Grayscale won an appeal with the SEC to reconsider allowing the conversion of its Bitcoin Trust into a BTC ETF, many companies appear to have been hoping for regulatory approval.
On August 31, two days after the Grayscale ETF decision, The SEC announced that it would postpone the decision to approve or reject Bitcoin Cash ETF applications from seven companies, including BlackRock, the world’s largest company. Ark Invest and 21Shares’ Bitcoin Cash ETF was not affected by the delay as its next approval, rejection or delay deadline is November 11th.
The current iteration of the Bitcoin investment vehicle from Ark Invest and 21Shares is the companies’ third attempt to launch a Bitcoin Cash ETF since 2021. In August, the companies also proposed listing two ETH futures ETFs. ETFs linked to cryptocurrency futures have been more successful following several approvals in 2021 from the SEC.
After the ETF presentation was announced, the price of ETH briefly rose. According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro, the price of ETH rose about 3%, from $1,623 to $1,669, before settling back between $1,620 and $1,640.
