According to CoinDesk, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has initiated a three-week comment period for three ether spot exchange traded fund (ETF) proposals. The ETF initiatives linked to Grayscale Investments, Fidelity, and Bitwise are now open for public opinion, as per the notices published by the SEC. The agency is inviting comments on the proposed rule change from interested individuals.
Despite the SEC's approval of bitcoin spot ETFs in January, which raised hopes, industry experts have grown less hopeful that the regulator will approve similar products tracking Ethereum's (ETH). The SEC had previously been forced to drop its opposition to the bitcoin applications following a significant court loss against Grayscale. However, SEC officials have argued that their subsequent approval of bitcoin ETFs does not extend to other tokens.
SEC Chair Gary Gensler stated in January that the approval of bitcoin should not be seen as an indication of the commission’s views on the status of other crypto assets under federal securities laws. The introduction of bitcoin (BTC) ETFs significantly boosted investments in that token. A similar effect could be anticipated for ETH if the SEC grants similar approvals.
However, it has been reported that the SEC is investigating whether ETH should be classified as a security, which would place it on a different legal footing than bitcoin. The SEC has until May 23 to make final decisions on some of the ETF applications.