Historic Launch: Spot Ether ETFs See $361 Million in Early Trading Frenzy

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) greenlit the launch of spot Ether exchange-traded funds, which started trading today, and in just 90 minutes of trading a total of $361 million changes hands in these funds.

That’s according to Bloomberg intelligence analyst Eric Balchunas, who noted that this trading volume would rank these ETFs “about 15^th overall” when it comes to trading volume, which “is top 1%.”

Normal exchange-traded fund launches, Balchunas added, often see over $1 million worth of trading volume on the first day, but spot Ether ETFs, which provide investors with exposure to the performance of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, have greatly outperformed that volume.

Leading the charge are the spot Ether ETFs launched by Grayscale and BlackRock, with $147 million and $71 million respectively, followed by Bitwise’s ETF, which did $50.4 million so far, and by Fidelity’s, which saw $49.3 million in volume in the first 90 minutes.

While spot Ether ETFs launched today the price of ETH remains relatively stable, rising just 0.6% over the last 24-hour period to remain below the $3,500 mark, according to data from CryptoCompare.

The launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs earlier this year ignited a surge in demand for BTC that helped its price reach a record high in March above the $73,000 mark. Experts expect spot Ether ETFs to attract between 20% of the flows spot Bitcoin ETFs saw in their first few months.

The SEC, it’s worth noting, has raised questions about whether ETH itself should be classified as a security under its purview, while the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) classifies both BTC and ETH as commodities.

Ether relies on a Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm that allows holders to stake their funds to help secure the network, and earn yield on their holdings as a result. The SEC has sued blockchain technology firm Consensys over its offering of access to staked Ether on MetaMask.

None of the spot Ether ETFs currently being traded are able to stake the underlying ETH they hold.

Featured image via Unsplash.