The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officially approved the first spot Ethereum ETFs, marking a major milestone for the cryptocurrency industry.

On May 23, the SEC approved 19b-4 filings for spot Ethereum ETFs from VanEck, BlackRock, Fidelity, Grayscale, Franklin Templeton, ARK 21Shares, Invesco Galaxy and Bitwise. Regardless, ETF issuers still need the SEC to sign the corresponding S-1 registration statement to officially begin trading, which is expected to take days, weeks or even months.

The historic decision comes after months of scrutiny from the SEC and one day after the US House of Representatives voted to pass a bill on financial and technological innovation for the 21st century, which is expected to bring bringing greater regulatory clarity to the cryptocurrency industry. 

Previously, analysts were quite pessimistic about the possibility of the SEC giving the green light to a spot Ethereum ETF. Bloomberg expert Eric Balchunas once said that there was only a 25% chance of this happening in May. However, the SEC approved a spot Bitcoin ETF earlier this year, along with Hong Kong's approval of the ETH ETF and Positive signals from the US Congress have sparked hope for the market.

The above decision shows the increasingly clear recognition from regulators of various types of digital assets. The approval of the Ethereum spot ETF is expected to attract large capital inflows from institutional investors, boosting liquidity and bringing the market into a new growth phase.

However, concerns remain about the SEC's approach. Some opinions say that the regulator is not really open in dialogue with relevant parties, in contrast to the previous Bitcoin spot ETF approval process.