VanEck Files for ETH Futures ETF in US
2 min readInvestment firm VanEck has filed for an exchange-traded fund (ETF) based on ETH futures with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
According to the filing, VanEck’s fund will invest in ETH futures contracts, “pooled investment vehicles and exchange-traded products that provide exposure to ETH” while not directly investing in ETH or any other digital assets.
VanEck has already proposed an ETH ETF that would invest directly in the cryptocurrency, as have fellow hopefuls WisdomTree and Kryptoin.
But to date, the SEC has yet to approve any ETF that intends to invest directly in cryptocurrencies such as ETH and BTC.
VanEck’s long road to a crypto ETF
Indeed, VanEck’s own application for a BTC ETF has been repeatedly delayed by the SEC. The firm first proposed a BTC ETF in 2018 before withdrawing that application in September 2019.
VanEck’s most recent attempt at a BTC ETF came in December 2020, joining a number of firms that filed applications around the transition period for the incoming Biden administration.
But their hopes that Biden’s new SEC chair Gary Gensler would be more open to crypto investment products (he once taught a blockchain course at MIT) appear to have been roundly dashed.
Gensler has continued the cautious approach taken by his predecessors, opining that he’d only be open to approving a BTC ETF under strict rules and not necessarily one that provides direct BTC exposure. Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum earlier this month, Gensler said that he “particularly looked forward to” the SEC’s review of “ETFs limited to these CME-traded BTC futures.”
VanEck’s ETH futures ETF would be the first in the U.S., though Canada has already approved a trio of ETH ETFs from Purpose Investments, Evolve ETFs, and CI Global Asset Management.