Deniz 
On May 10, ARK Invest and 21Shares revised their proposal for an Ethereum exchange-traded fund (ETF) and deleted any mention of staking.
21Shares does not appear to have included a provision in Friday’s revised filing indicating that it will stake some of the fund’s assets via third-party providers. “From time to time, the Sponsor may stake a portion of the Trust’s assets through one or more trusted Staking Providers,” it stated.
A provision in the firm’s filing from February 7th said that 21Shares planned to record the earnings from staking Ethereum as income for the fund and that the company anticipated receiving ETH as a reward.
The most recent document, however, omits the pertinent portion while retaining other general remarks, such as losses from slicing penalties, money that is momentarily unavailable during bonding and unbonding, and possible effects on the price of ETH.
Despite the lack of formal comments, Bloomberg ETF analyst Erich Balchunas speculated in his Friday post on X that the change could be an attempt to improve the program in light of possible input from the SEC.
On the other hand, according to Balchunas, the modification can be a last-ditch attempt (“Hail Mary”) or a calculated maneuver to reduce the amount of data that the SEC has to reject the proposal.
Two companies, ARK Invest and 21Shares, applied to launch an ETF that would track spot Ethereum in September. Trading on the Cboe BZX Exchange, the fund seeks to offer direct exposure to Ether. This market will use the New York Variant of the CME CF Ether-Dollar Reference Rate.
Coinbase Custody Trust Company controls the Ether assets, 21Shares is the sponsor, and ARK Investment Management is the sub-advisor who markets the Shares. Delaware Trust Company is the trustee.
Spot Ethereum ETF proposals have been pending decision-making from the SEC for several weeks now. The commission has postponed the decision-making process for many proposals, including Invesco Galaxy’s spot Ethereum ETF and those from Grayscale, Franklin Templeton, VanEck, and BlackRock.
By May 23, the regulator will have to make a decision on VanEck’s spot Ethereum application. On May 24, Ark and 21Shares will have their applications reviewed.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs were greenlit for trading on U.S. exchanges in January by the SEC. Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas fell from a 70% to a 25% possibility of a spot Ethereum ETF approval by late May, indicating a decline in optimism regarding the approval of such funds in recent months.