Kelly Strategic Management, an investment firm based in Denver has approached the SEC seeking approval for an ETF. Kelly Strategic Management is planning an ETH futures ETF.
Kelly’s application with the SEC follows soon after the withdrawal of an identical proposal by VenEck and ProShares recently.
According to the filing by Kelly with the SEC, the proposed ETF pans to invest in Ether futures contracts that will be cash-settled. The fund will be traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME).
Ethereum Futures ETF
Analysts at Bloomberg were skeptical of the SEC according approval. The analysts felt that there was only a 20% chance of the approval coming through. The analysts felt that the SEC may not yet be ready for this new move. He felt that the Chairman of the SEC would, at this moment, not approve anything other than a BTC futures ETF.
When VanEck and ProShares had earlier filed for Ether ETFs they had been asked to withdraw. The Bloomberg analyst added that VanEck and ProShares’ filing for Ether ETF had not been approved since it gave exposure to non-BTC crypto assets. Hence, Kelly’s Ether ETF filing was also likely to be turned down.
Other independent researchers also agreed with the above assessment. An approval for the Ether ETF by SEC would signal a tacit acceptance of ETH being and registered security – something that the SEC wants to avoid.
Just in the second half of 2021, SEC has approved many BTC futures ETFs. It is clear the SEC is unwilling to approve any fund offering exposure other than CME BTC futures ETF.
The global head of ETFs at Invesco also echoed the above sentiment saying that the SEC only approves ETFs with exposure to bitcoin futures.
