According to Bill Qian, the chairman of Cypher Capital and former global head of fundraising at Binance Labs, it is now Wall Street firms and large financial institutions, rather than crypto natives, who are pushing for the approval of spot Ether (ETH) exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
In an interview with Cointelegraph, Qian stated that companies such as BlackRock, Grayscale, Fidelity, ARK 21Shares, Invesco Galaxy, VanEck, Hashdex, and Franklin Templeton are all vying for the approval of a spot Ether ETF.
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has postponed its decision on VanEck’s ETF application to May 23. It has also delayed 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 beneficial for crypto natives, Qian believes that large issuers have a greater interest due to the potential ETF-related fees they could generate. Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETF offers the highest fee at 1.5%, followed by BlackRock and Fidelity with 0.25% and 21Shares with 0.21%.
Before the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs, several applicants revised their S-1 filings multiple times in an attempt to lower their ETF fees and offer the lowest management fees to clients. Bitwise currently 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 predicts that a spot Ether ETF is “highly likely” to be approved this year, mainly due to the demand from BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with trillions of dollars in capital.
Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart, however, expects the current Ether ETF approvals to be denied in late May, as reported on March 19.