Galaxy and Invesco Join Growing Ethereum ETF Race

Asset management giant Invesco has teamed up with Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital to apply for an Ethereum (ETH) spot exchange-traded fund (ETF), following their joint application for an equivalent Bitcoin (BTC) product in June.

Per the firm’s S-1 registration statement, the Invesco Galaxy Ethereum ETF will “reflect the performance of the spot price of ether” by holding units of the cryptocurrency with a separate custodian, who is yet to be identified. While Invesco is the sponsor, Galaxy Digital is its “execution agent,” which will sell ETH to pay the Trust’s expenses.

This marks the fourth Ethereum spot ETF application to land in the SEC’s mailbox in recent weeks, following similar filings from Ark Invest/21Shares, VanEck, and Hashdex earlier this month.

The industry has maintained that a spot ETF is the next logical milestone for crypto investment in the U.S. now that an Ethereum futures product looks all but guaranteed to launch next week.

VanEck and Valkyrie have already been approved this week, but Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart noted they could be joined by Bitwise, ProShares, Hashdex, and Volatility Shares in launching as early as Monday, October 2.

Initially Valkyrie announced its Ethereum ETF would start trading on Friday. But the firm ran into trouble with the SEC for purchasing Ether futures contracts before it released the news. It has since agreed to unwind its current position in ETH futures and will repurchase contracts only after the fund goes live next week.

While futures ETFs have gotten a pass from regulators, spot crypto ETFs remain out of reach for U.S. investors. Since their June application, Invesco and Galaxy’s Bitcoin spot ETF application has been delayed twice by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), alongside rivals like BlackRock, Bitwise and Valkyrie.

Pressure is now mounting on the SEC after losing a lawsuit to Grayscale, in which a federal court deemed the agency’s repeated denial of the company’s spot ETF product “arbitrary and capricious” given the agency’s openness to futures ETFs.

Bitwise filed an amendment to its Bitcoin ETF application on Monday to account for future SEC rejections against similar products despite its court loss.