Wall Street firms and major financial institutions, rather than those deeply involved in cryptocurrency, are now leading the charge for the approval of spot Ether (ETH) exchange-traded funds (ETFs), according to Bill Qian, the chairman of Cypher Capital and former global head of fundraising at Binance Labs.
In an interview with Cointelegraph, Qian stated, “Now it’s not crypto natives pushing the approval of ETFs but Wall Street firms trying their best to make it happen.”
A number of companies are competing for the approval of a spot Ether ETF, including BlackRock, Grayscale, Fidelity, ARK 21Shares, Invesco Galaxy, VanEck, Hashdex, and Franklin Templeton.
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has delayed its decision on VanEck’s ETF application until May 23. It has also postponed its decision on the Hashdex and ARK 21Shares spot Ether ETFs, with a final decision expected in late May.
While the approval of an Ether ETF would be a positive development for those involved in cryptocurrency, Qian believes that larger issuers have a greater interest due to the fees they can generate from ETFs. Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETF has the highest fee at 1.5%, followed by BlackRock and Fidelity with 0.25% and 21Shares with 0.21%.
Prior to the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs, several applicants revised their S-1 filings multiple times to reduce their ETF fees, in a race to offer the lowest management fees to clients. Among the 10 ETF issuers, Bitwise offers the lowest fees, with zero fees for the first six months and a 0.20% fee thereafter for ETFs with $1 billion in assets.
Qian believes that the approval of a spot Ether ETF is “highly likely” this year due to the demand from BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with trillions of dollars in capital.
According to Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart, the current Ether ETF approvals are expected to be denied in late May.