Grayscale Ethereum Trust Gets SEC Nod As the First Public-Quoted ETH Investment Product

In a major development, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has given its approval for the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) as the first public quoted ETH investment product in the country. Thus, shares of the Grayscale Ethereum Trust shall be quoted on the top OTC marketplace OTCQX, under the ticker symbol ETHE.

The public-listed shares will facilitate easy tracking of the ETH market price, fees, and other expenses. Besides, just like in traditional markets, users can buy and sell shares throughout the trading hours at market prices. As of November 19, the market price per share for ETHE quotes at $68.07 while the ETH holdings per share remained at $44.18.

The ETHE investment vehicle gets the status of the SEC reporting company and is the second crypto investment vehicle to attain this status after the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). The latest announcement will infuse additional liquidity to Ethereum. Moreover, Grayscale also notes that its Ethereum Trust will be eligible for tax-advantaged accounts.

The Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) currently holds $1.22 billion of assets under management. In November so far, the Ethereum Trust has attracted more than $300 million of fresh investments with the AUM jumping by 34%. The Grayscale Ethereum Trust is the second-largest crypto investment vehicle by Grayscale after GBTC. The ETHE contributes around 10% of the total assets under management by Grayscale.

ETH Price Surge, DeFi Demand, and ETH 2.0 Developments

Ethereum (ETH) remains one of the most-traded cryptocurrencies in the market this year. At its current price of $482, the ETH year-to-date returns stand at more than 200%. Besides, the DeFi wave has contributed to massive ETH transactions as the Ethereum blockchain hosts nearly 70% of the DeFi tokens in the market. The result is that the ETH concentration in smart contracts has jumped significantly over that on the exchanges.

On the other hand, the network continues to face issues with its transition to Ethereum 2.0. The ETH 2.0 deposit contracts have failed to attract enough staking for the Ethereum 2.0 Beacon chain to go live. In his recent AMA session on Reddit, the Ethereum co-founder has hinted at further delays for the ETH 2.0 launch.

When asked about the complete consensus migration and the timeline for sharding, Buterin noted that scaling might be ready before the staking. He added:

“For the merge, I would say less than a year is not realistic. Even if a complete merge implementation fell out of the sky in February, I would recommend we sit on our butts until November or so to convince people that PoS is safe.”

Buterin has set a realistic timeline of two more years for the complete ETH transition.