BlackRock and Nasdaq today officially submitted documents to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), planning to add options trading capabilities to the asset management company's Ethereum spot exchange-traded fund iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA).
The document emphasizes that the move is aimed at removing barriers to market transactions, promoting a free and open market system, while protecting the interests of investors to a greater extent.
By offering options on the Trust, investors will have access to the multiple benefits of options trading based on an Ethereum spot ETF, including increased transaction cost efficiencies and enhanced investment hedging strategies.
Introduction of options trading and regulatory review period
Nasdaq said in the filing that it has successfully traded options on other commodity ETFs in the form of trusts, such as BlackRock’s iShares COMEX Gold Trust and iShares Silver Trust.
James Seyffart, an ETF analyst at Bloomberg, pointed out on the social platform X (formerly Twitter) that according to the process, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has 21 days to respond to the proposal. But he expects that the deadline for the regulator to make a final decision is likely to be around April 9, 2025.
In addition, Seyffart stressed that the SEC is not the only regulator that needs to approve the joint proposal of Nasdaq and BlackRock. In fact, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) must also approve the proposal, indicating that the introduction of options trading still needs to be reviewed and agreed by multiple financial regulators.
Although there is a gap with ETHE, ETHA has a strong growth momentum
The Ethereum ETF launched by BlackRock has seen a significant increase in its market share since its listing in the United States on July 23. In just a short period of time, BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA) has more than tripled its market share from 3% to 9.87%. According to data from DefiLlama, ETHA’s assets under management (AUM) have exceeded US$594 million.
Despite ETHA's strong growth momentum, there is still a big gap compared to ETHE, which is a Grayscale trust transformed into an ETF. ETHE's asset management scale has reached US$4.902 billion, almost eight times that of ETHA, which also shows ETHE's leading position in the market.
However, market changes are always full of variables. As shown by the launch of the Bitcoin spot ETF in the United States, BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) is expected to surpass Grayscale's GBTC after a period of growth.
This historical trend of IBIT provides a positive precedent for ETHA, suggesting that with the improvement of market awareness and the increase of investor demand, ETHA is expected to achieve greater breakthroughs and development in the future. #贝莱德 #SEC #以太坊现货ETF #期权交易
Conclusion:
The application documents submitted by BlackRock and Nasdaq to the SEC have put the Ethereum spot ETF option trading function into the regulatory review stage. This move is not only expected to improve the efficiency of market operation and improve the market mechanism, but also reflects the need to find a point of fit between financial product innovation and regulatory framework for coordinated development. Although ETHA currently has a gap with ETHE in terms of asset management scale, its rapid growth momentum shows the market's strong demand and confidence in such products.
As regulatory review proceeds and market awareness increases, ETHA's options trading function is expected to bring new trading opportunities and risk management tools to investors. At the same time, this also heralds the further integration of cryptocurrencies and traditional financial markets, and provides investors with more diversified product choices. In the future, as the market environment continues to evolve and regulatory policies gradually improve, we look forward to seeing ETHA and the entire cryptocurrency ETF market achieve more robust development and wider market acceptance.