Investment firm Franklin Templeton is the latest asset manager to file a spot Ethereum exchange-traded fund (ETF) application with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States.
The filing was submitted on Monday. Coinbase Custody will be the Ether custodian and Bank of New York Mellon the cash custodian, administrator, and transfer agent for the Franklin Templeton Spot Ethereum ETF.
Franklin Templeton joins a long list of asset managers such as BlackRock, Fidelity, Grayscale, VanEck, Invesco and Galaxy, as well as Cathy Wood’s Ark Invests and 21Shares, all have submitted applications for a spot Ethereum ETF.
Franklin Templeton just joined the spot #Ethereum ETF race. pic.twitter.com/zJvk9seXe3
— James Seyffart (@JSeyff) February 12, 2024
Earlier this month, Ark Invest and 12Shares refiled their joint application for a spot market Ethereum ETF to address cash creation and redemption. The amendments bring it in line with spot Bitcoin ETFs recently approved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Franklin Templeton Confident in Spot Bitcoin ETF
In January, the SEC approved eleven spot bitcoin ETFs and one of them included the Franklin Bitcoin ETF trading under the ticker symbol “EZBC.”
Franklin Templeton remains optimistic about the future of its spot Bitcoin ETF despite not yet achieving significant trading volumes compared to industry giants like BlackRock, Fidelity, and Grayscale. These major players account for about 90% of total trading volume in the spot Bitcoin ETF space, Franklin Templeton believes its product will gain traction, reports Fredrik Vold from Cryptonews.
US Bitcoin Spot ETFs See $2.8 Billion Since Launch
Bitcoin-backed investment options have continued to attract large inflows. Capturing this trend, digital asset management firm CoinShares noted $2.8 billion in inflows since the launch of US spot Bitcoin ETFs, reports Jimmy Aki from Cryptonews.
The Bitcoin spot ETFs are a hybrid financial instrument that allows retail investors to interface with the digital asset ecosystem. Instead of buying Bitcoin directly, investors can purchase tokenized shares in a fund that tracks Bitcoin’s price. Bitcoin ETFs have been gaining popularity largely because investors don’t have to store the virtual assets. Spot ETFs track the underlying asset’s performance in real-time without the user exerting extra effort.
Ethereum Gas Fees Surge
Ethereum remains the second-largest crypto by market capitalization after Bitcoin. Gas fees on the Ethereum network have soared to levels not seen since March 2023, driven by the growing interest in a new experimental token standard known as ERC-404, reports Hassan Shittu from Cryptonews.
On February 9, Ethereum gas prices soared to an average peak of 70 gwei, equivalent to $60 for a standard transaction. Peak gas costs even reached as high as 377 gwei, a level not seen since May 12, 2023. Several factors have contributed to the heightened gas fees, but the primary catalyst has been the hype surrounding the ERC-404 token standard.
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