Spot ether ETFs are coming, with SEC ruling maybe as soon as this week or next

Published Mon, Jul 8 202411:47 AM EDTUpdated Mon, Jul 8 202411:54 AM EDT

The next round of filings for spot ether ETFs with the SEC is due today, part of the ongoing regulatory process required before spot ether ETFs can be launched. But approval could come as soon as this week or next. It's an interesting moment for cryptocurrency enthusiasts: Ethereum is 25% off its March high, and bitcoin is 23% below its March 52-week high. One thing's for sure: the launch of spot bitcoin ETFs this year has been a success. How can you tell? Here's how: in the first half of a typical year, most of the inflows into ETFs are in plain vanilla passive index funds, like the S & P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) . That's still true for this year, but two of the top 10 ETF inflows year to date have been into spot bitcoin ETFs: iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) at number four, and Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust (FBTC) at number eight. Top 10 ETF inflows YTD Vanguard S & P 500 (VOO) $44.2 billion iShares Core S & P 500 (IVV) $33.2 billion Invesco QQQ (QQQ) $19.3 billion iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) $17.7 billion Vanguard Total Stock Market (VTI) $17.5 billion iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond (AGG) $9.8 billion SPDR Portfolio S & P 500 (SPLG) $9.7 billion Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust (FBTC) $9.2 billion Blackrock US Equity Factor Rotation (DYNF) $8.9 billion Vanguard Growth (VUG) $7.7 billion Source: ETF Store Second, spot bitcoin ETFs have attracted about $15 billion in total inflows since launching. By any standard, that is a successful launch for a niche product. Grayscale, which had a pre-existing fund that converted to an ETF, saw some outflows, but that was more than offset by significant inflows into other major players like iShares, Fidelity, ARK, and Bitwise: Spot bitcoin ETFs (Assets under management) iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) $18.4 billion Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) $16.3 billion Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust (FBTC) $10.1 billion ARK Invest/21Shares (ARKB) $2.8 billion Bitwise Bitcoin Trust (BITB) $2.3 billion Other $2 billion Total: $51.8 billion Source: ETF Store What can we expect from the spot ether launch? What would be a victory? Would 50% of the inflows of the spot bitcoin ETF be a win? Twenty-five percent? We'll talk about this with Matt Hougan from Bitwise Asset Management, one of the applicants for a spot ether ETF. Matt is our guest today on ETF Edge at 12:35 p.m. on-air and streaming from 1:10 to 1:30 p.m. ET on ETFEdge.cnbc.com . Also joining Matt is Nate Geraci from the ETF Store.