While all eyes were on the SEC's Etheruem ETF decision after the spot Bitcoin ETF approved in January, a surprise Ethereum move came from Grayscale.
In these days when spot Ethereum ETFs are almost unlikely to be approved in the short term, Grayscale has withdrawn its application for Ethereum futures ETF.
While this move by the company caused confusion among investors as the decision for spot Ethereum ETFs is awaited, the spot ETH application is still valid.
Grayscale submitted its application for this Ethereum Futures ETF in September last year and decided to postpone it several times.
While the reason for Grayscale's decision is still unclear, this withdrawal decision created speculation in the market.
Commenting on this decision, Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart said that this withdrawal decision could be a way to protect Grayscale's spot Ethereum ETF application from any rejection.
Seyffart also added that Grayscale may have met with the SEC and been persuaded to withdraw the application with the information it received in these meetings.
As it is known, the critical decision in spot Ethereum ETFs is expected to be May 23. Because the SEC must make a final decision on approval or rejection of VanEck's spot ETH ETF application by May 23.
UPDATE This is interesting. @Grayscale just withdrew their 19b-4 filing for an #Ethereum futures ETF. This was essentially a trojan horse filing in my view, in order to create the same circumstances that allowed Grayscale to win the $GBTC lawsuit (approve futures deny spot) pic.twitter.com/Kihj2dlQx1
— James Seyffart (@JSeyff) May 7, 2024
Is Ethereum a Security According to the SEC?
Although the SEC did not make an official statement or make a decision on this issue, Ethereum Developer company Consensys recently filed a lawsuit against the SEC and asked the court to determine that ETH is not a securities.
These court documents contained striking information about the SEC and Etheruem. Accordingly, the SEC and its chairman, Gary Gensler, believe that ETH has been traded as an unregistered security for at least 1 year.
At this point, the emergence of the SEC's claim that it classified Ethereum as a security last year further diminished the hopes for ETF approval.
*This is not investment advice.
