According to Blockworks, Franklin Templeton has filed for a spot ether ETF, joining other companies such as Ark 21Shares and BlackRock in the race. The filing states that the shares are intended to offer a convenient means of making an investment similar to an investment in ether, as opposed to acquiring, holding, and trading ether directly on a peer-to-peer or other basis or via a digital asset platform. Franklin was one of nearly a dozen firms to launch a bitcoin ETF in January after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) gave the issuers the green light.
In the recent filing, Franklin also expressed interest in staking the ether (ETH) held by the proposed fund. Ark 21Shares updated its prospectus last week to include language around staking, which was not present in earlier filings or in filings from BlackRock. The Franklin filing does not include the brackets that were present in the Ark 21Shares filing. The filing states that the sponsor may stake a portion of the fund's assets through one or more trusted staking providers, including an affiliate of the sponsor, and the fund would receive certain staking rewards of ether tokens, which may be treated as income to the fund.
Blockworks Research analyst Spencer Hughes said that the language marks a potential milestone for the intersection of traditional finance and digital assets, as currently around 25% of the total ETH supply is staked. A decision on spot ETH ETFs is expected in May, and Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Seyffart believes that there's a 60% chance that the SEC will approve the ETFs.
