Wall Street firms and major financial institutions, rather than those deeply involved in the crypto industry, are now leading the charge for the approval of spot Ether (ETH) exchange-traded funds (ETFs), according to Bill Qian, 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.”
Among the companies vying for the approval of a spot Ether ETF are BlackRock, Grayscale, Fidelity, ARK 21Shares, Invesco Galaxy, VanEck, Hashdex, and Franklin Templeton.
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has postponed its decision on VanEck’s ETF application to May 23. Additionally, it has delayed its decision on the Hashdex and ARK 21Shares spot Ether ETFs, with the final deadline for a decision set for late May.
While the approval of an Ether ETF would be a positive development for those in the crypto industry, Qian argues that large issuers have a greater vested interest due to the fees generated by ETFs. Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETF offers 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 made multiple updates to their S-1 filings in order to lower their ETF fees. This was done in a race to offer the lowest management fees to clients. Among the 10 ETF issuers, Bitwise offers the lowest fees, with ETFs that have zero fees for the first six months and $1 billion in assets, followed by a 0.20% fee.
Qian believes that the approval of a spot Ether ETF is “highly likely” to happen 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, as stated in a March 19 post on X.
Source: James Seyffart
Related: Ether ETFs may be delayed, as institutions are unprepared — Web3 exec