- SEC approved 19b-4 listing for Ethereum ETFs, but S-1 approval awaited
- Bitcoin ETFs have seen massive inflows, while Ethereum is also expected to attract millions
After much speculation surrounding the approval of Spot Ethereum [ETH] ETFs, the SEC gave the green light for these financial products a few days ago.
What’s significant here, however, is that they only approved the 19b-4 listing requests for ETH ETFs, and not the crucial S-1 registration statements.
What’s behind the split?
This split approval raises questions, with some pointing to potential political influence rather than careful assessment of the ETF proposals. Sharing a similar line of thought, Matt Hougansaid CIO at Bitwise during a recent episode of the ‘Bankless’ podcast:
“I haven’t seen an example of people not expecting approval expecting approval so quickly and overnight. So to the extent that this never happened again, there was something shocking going on here.”
James Seyffart, research analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, echoed the same, adding:
Source: James Seyffart/X
When asked about the next steps in terms of an ETF, Hougan noted:
“The process between where we are and the listing of these ETFs is: issuers have to go back and forth with the investment management allocation around what exactly is in this document.”
Here he emphasized that while the SEC’s approval of the 19b-4s is an important step forward, the full launch of ETH ETFs depends on the approval of the S-1 document. This can take weeks to months.
Impact on the price of ETH
Needless to say, these developments contributed to significant fluctuations in Ethereum’s market capitalization, initially leading to a decline in the charts. However, at the time of writing, ETH had risen to $3,752, up 1.65% in the past 24 hours. Broader market sentiment, led by Bitcoin surging past $69,000, had also turned bullish.
Bitwise CIO also provided some insights into this matter, stating:
“There’s no new supply, the net supply is effectively zero and what that means is this new demand shock is buying ethereum from people who don’t need to sell it and that’s just an extremely bullish setup.”
BTC inflows vs ETH inflows
As for spotting Bitcoin [BTC] ETFs are worried: since their debut on January 11, inflows have been phenomenal. In fact, recent data from Farside Investors shows that Bitcoin ETFs saw total inflows of $251.9 million on May 24.
Source: Farside Investors
However, will Ethereum see similar numbers? Not according to Hougan. He further said:
“I don’t think Ethereum ETFs will match Bitcoin ETFs, but I do think it will be measured in terms of many billions of dollars.”
The director expanded on this point by emphasizing that Bitcoin’s simplicity as “digital gold” makes it easily understandable, while Ethereum’s role as a platform for decentralized applications is more complex.
However, institutional investors will likely see the value in diversification and dive into both BTC and ETH ETFs.