Ethereum ETFs approved for trading – starting today!

First it goes slowly, then very quickly: Surprisingly, the CBOE in Chicago has listed five Ethereum ETFs for trading.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) opens trading today with five Ethereum spot ETFs. These are the ETFs from VanEck, Invesco, Franklin Templeton, Fidelity, and 21Shares, which track the spot price of Ethereum and are backed by Ether.

This move followed a surprising approval of the ETFs by the SEC at the end of May, which, however, was not as straightforward as with the Bitcoin ETFs. Therefore, the exact day of the trading start was unclear. At the beginning of July, the SEC delayed the approval by returning the „S-1“ forms to the ETF issuers.

Now, it seems that the last step is completed, and trading at the CBOE, the world’s largest options exchange, can begin today when the exchange opens for U.S. customers.

The price of Ethereum remained surprisingly calm in response to this news. Ethereum continued its upward trend, which it had already started on July 6 and 7 from a low of 2,600 euros. Today, Ethereum has added 1.5 percent, most notably, the price has also significantly increased in Bitcoin terms.

Price of Ethereum in euros in the 1-month chart according to coinmarketcap.com

As with Bitcoin, the approval of the ETFs as an immediate event has already been factored in. It was clear from the end of May that this would inevitably happen. In the long term, however – as the Bitcoin ETF also shows us – easy access to traditional investment capital is a significant factor that will sustainably influence price discovery on the exchanges.

A downside, however, is that staking is not allowed, as this would define a different class of the underlying asset. Thus, investors miss out on a largely risk-free available dividend between five and ten percent – which, after all, is good news for everyone else, as the unstaked Ether kept in users‘ wallets will earn higher interest.