United States Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler suggested to lawmakers that the regulator could sign off on the final approvals for listing and trading shares of spot Ether ( ETH ) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) within three months.

In a June 13 hearing of the Senate Banking Committee discussing U.S. President Joe Biden’s 2025 budget requests for the SEC, Gensler said he expected the commission to approve S-1 registration statements for asset managers “sometime over the course of this summer.” On May 23, the SEC approved 19b-4 filings from eight companies, but the applications require S-1 approvals before the ETFs can begin trading on U.S. exchanges.

SEC chair sees spot Ether ETF S-1 approvals sometime in summer 2024 image 0 Gary Gensler addressing Senate Banking Committee on June 13. Source: U.S. Senate

Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty questioned Gensler on why the commission hadn’t “fully approved Ether ETFs,” claiming the SEC chair was not prioritizing a “constructive set of rules of the road for the crypto industry.” Though Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Rostin Behmam said Ether was a commodity in response to Senator Hagerty, Gensler did not directly answer the question but pivoted to Ether ETFs. 

“The Ethereum exchange-traded product of filings that were in front of us from stock exchanges — I think there were eight or nine of them — were all jointly approved,” said Gensler. “Individual issuers still are working through the registration process that’s working smoothly, and I would envision sometime over the course of this summer...”

Final Ether ETF approval could take weeks

The SEC chair said in a June 5 interview that final spot Ether ETF approvals would “take some time” after greenlighting 19b-4 filings. Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas suggested that launching the Ether products on U.S. exchanges in June was possible but predicted final SEC approvals by July 4.

“July was and is a complete guess,” said ETF analyst James Seyffart on X in response to Gensler’s comments. “But I was more confident in saying that ETH ETFs will launch at some point this summer. That was sort of a given.”

Related: Spot Ether ETFs approved, but Gary Gensler didn’t vote for them — Here’s why

On Jan. 10, the SEC approved 194-b filings for spot Bitcoin ( BTC ) ETFs. The investment vehicles began trading on Jan. 11 as the SEC signed off on the effective S-1 prospectuses.

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust was one of the first ETFs to begin trading on the Nasdaq. The SEC has signed off on the asset manager’s 19b-4 filing — in addition to applications from Fidelity, Grayscale, Bitwise, VanEck, Ark, Invesco Galaxy and Franklin Templeton — but it’s unclear which company will have the first bite at the apple once the S-1 registration statements go through.

Magazine: Godzilla vs. Kong: SEC faces fierce battle against crypto’s legal firepower