The CBOE ( Chicago Board Options Exchange), the financial options and derivatives exchange founded in 1973, announced in an issuance notice the launch date of the Franklin Ethereum ETFs. Ethereum ETFs issued by 21 Shares, Fidelity, Invesco and Van Eck will begin trading simultaneously to ensure equal competition for all products.
“We are pleased to announce that one (1) exchange-traded product (“ETP”) will be listed on Cboe and will begin trading as a new issue on July 23, 2024, pending regulatory effectiveness.”
CBOE, investment derivatives exchange.
According to CBOE itself, new issuances of ETPs, a type of product of which Ethereum ETFs are a part, are carried out through a one-time auction of new issues. The exchange will open trading at approximately 9:30 a.m. EST.
Issuance notices are a standard CBOE process when listing new products. Source: https://www.cboe.com/
According to Rob Marrocco, CBOE’s Global Head, the precedent for Ethereum spot ETFs was Bitcoin ETFs. The platform listed six of the nine Bitcoin spot ETFs issued by BlackRock, Fidelity, Grayscale and other large firms whose fight to offer the most attractive investment product was known as the “fee war.”
Is another tariff war looming?
According to data provided by James Seyffart, asset manager and analyst at Bloomberg, 7 of the 10 funds that issue Ethereum shares on the exchange “have fee waivers .” This implies that trading these Ethereum ETFs will not cost anything until the maximum total tradable amount is reached and/or the waiver closing date.
ETF data indicates that these exemptions will last between 6 and 12 months, after which trading costs will range from 0.19% to 2.5% of the amount traded.
Fee waivers are a strategy used by large funds to attract clients to their new financial products. Source: James Seyffart (@JSeyff), X profile.
As with Bitcoin spot ETFs, the custodian of most of the underlying Ethereum assets (which serve as backing for the shares) is Coinbase, the US exchange regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS).
