Ether spot ETFs officially open in the U.S.: What you need to know
After Bitcoin spot ETFs, it's time for Ether spot ETFs in the US. A few months ago, the final approvals were given yesterday for funds that received "transit permission" in May, which even market experts did not expect. How much investment Ether spot ETFs will receive and the level of interest is also eagerly awaited by both the crypto and traditional finance participant.
Ether spot ETFs will be officially processed in the US at 16.30 CEST. As a surprise, even for ETF experts, the lack of staking feature in these funds approved by the SEC was one of the most important details. As unbalanced as the SEC has pursued a policy on cryptocurrencies, it has insisted on a negative point of view on staking, and companies have removed this feature from their products.
Transaction fees wars...
In Ether spot ETFs as well as Bitcoin spot ETFs, companies fought fiercely over transaction fees. While Grayscale's ETHE fund was nearly 10 times more expensive than its competitors, the company extracted the mini-ETH fund, bringing this ETF's transaction fee to the lowest level in the race at 0.15%.
Which exchanges of the companies' Ether spot ETFs to trade and the transaction fees were as follows:
Grayscale Ethereum Mini Fund (NYSE: ETH), 0.15%
Grayscale Ethereum Fund (NYSE: ETHE), 2.5%
Franklin Ethereum ETF (CBOE: EZET), 0.19%
VanEck Ethereum ETF (CBOE: ETHV), 0.20%
Bitwise Ethereum ETF (NYSE: ETHW), 0.20%
21Shares Core Ethereum ETF (CBOE: CETH), 0.21%
Fidelity Ethereum Fund (CBOE: FETH), 0.25%
iShare Ethereum Fund (NASDAQ: ETHA), 0.25%
Invesco Galaxy Ethereum ETF (CBOE: QETH), 0.25%
On the other hand, companies will not charge their customers a transaction fee until a certain period or a certain investment level is achieved, whichever is reached first.
6 out of 8 ETF issuers will use the Coinbase exchange for its custody services. While VanEck agrees with the Gemini stock exchange on this issue, Fidelity will provide storage services itself.
How much is the expectation?
Experts don't expect Ether spot ETFs to invest as much as their Bitcoin spot ETF. Citigroup, one of the major financial institutions of the USA, estimated a figure of 4.7 to 5.4 billion dollars for the first 6 months. Matt Hougan, one of the Bitwise executives, stated that he thought that the price of Ether would rise to over $5,000 in a few months after the ETFs were opened to transactions.
Nate Geraci, the founder of ETF Store, which provides consultancy services on ETFs, pointed out that the Ethereum market is 1 in 3 of Bitcoin and said:
'I think this rate is guiding in terms of the formation of our expectations... I think we will see an investment of 1/3 of Bitcoin spot ETFs'
While Bitcoin spot ETFs have reached a market capitalization of $60 billion so far in total, they have created a volume of $330 billion in volume cumulatively. BTC spot ETFs were traded in the US on January 11.
There is also the expectation of a fall...
Some experts, on the other hand, state that a similar picture may occur in Ether, citing the decrease in the price of Bitcoin after the approval given to Bitcoin spot ETFs as an example. Although the price of Bitcoin reached $49k before the transaction of ETFs, it later fell to $38 thousand but broke its new record with $73,000 after about 2 months.