"US Securities Regulators Expected to Reject Approval of Ethereum Spot ETF"

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin [Photo by Yonhap News]

The approval decision for the spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) of Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, is expected to be made on the 23rd (local time). Within the investment industry, there is a growing expectation that the U.S. securities authorities, which approved the Bitcoin spot ETF last January, will block this one.

According to Bloomberg on the 19th, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is scheduled to make a final decision on the asset management company VanEck's application for an Ethereum spot ETF on the 23rd.

However, the industry views the approval of the Ethereum spot ETF as unlikely. The SEC had requested various amendments from applicants several weeks before approving the Bitcoin spot ETF last January, which ultimately played a crucial role in securing approval. But in the case of the Ethereum spot ETF, there were almost no private pre-approval discussions between the applicant and the SEC, leading to the conclusion that the approval is effectively being denied.

Katherine Dowling, an advisor at Bitwise who applied for the Ethereum spot ETF in March, said, "Most firms expect that the Ethereum spot ETF will not be approved," adding, "We have not seen the typical series of SEC activities that usually occur when the likelihood of approval is high."

There is still some hope that the Ethereum spot ETF could be approved. Since the Bitcoin spot ETF has already been approved, if the Ethereum spot ETF is not approved without justifiable reasons, the SEC could face lawsuits and potentially lose, as happened with the Bitcoin spot ETF. Grayscale Investments' victory in a related lawsuit against the SEC last August also paved the way for the approval of the Bitcoin spot ETF.

Last month, Ethereum's price fell about 20% amid growing uncertainty in the industry about the approval of the spot ETF, but it has shown a slight upward trend since the beginning of this month.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.