The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it will not have time to consider Grayscale's application to launch spot ETFs on ether until the end of 2023 and will return to the issue in the first quarter of 2024.
The delay is due to the lack of time required to conduct an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the launch of spot ETFs on Ethereum. The department says that the launch of such a new financial product involves modification of the rules of exchange trading. Changed rules will allow the electronic securities exchange NYSE Arca to list and trade Grayscale Ethereum Trust units.
Approval of Grayscale's application or initiation of the procedure for reconciling the claims of the regulator and the applicant should take place at the end of January next year.
Grayscale's application for SEC approval to convert shares of the Grayscale Ethereum Trust into shares of a spot exchange-traded fund for ether was filed in October. However, as in the case of applications from companies such as BlackRock, Hashdex, ARK 21Shares, Invesco Galaxy, VanEck and Fidelity, the SEC is in no hurry to review.
Earlier, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said that the long approval process for applications for spot cryptocurrency EFTs is due to a thoughtful assessment of the risks to the US financial system and therefore does not imply hasty and ill-considered decisions..