The debut of futures-based ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) got off to a sluggish start on their first trading day.
Nine ETFs offering exposure to ether futures entered the market on Monday. Among them, five will exclusively hold ether futures, while the remaining four will have a combination of bitcoin and ether futures in their portfolios. Notably, Valkyrie’s Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BTF), which has primarily focused on Bitcoin for the past two years, is undergoing a strategic shift to include ether in its holdings. The remaining ETFs are entirely new to the market.
Eric Balchunas, an ETF analyst at Bloomberg, described the overall trading volume for the Ether Futures ETFs as “pretty unimpressive.”
One of the standout ETFs on the first day of trading was VanEck’s Ethereum Strategy ETF (EFUT), which saw just under 25,000 shares traded at an average price of approximately $17 per share, resulting in a total trading volume of around $425,000.
In comparison, the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO), which launched during a strong crypto bull market in October 2021, traded more than $1 billion on its inaugural trading day.
The cryptocurrency industry is eagerly anticipating a decision from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding various pending applications for both spot bitcoin and spot ether ETFs. Grayscale Investments has also joined the fray by filing for the conversion of its Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE), valued at nearly $5 billion, into a spot ETF.