The BlackRock logo is displayed at its headquarters in New York City, Nov. 14, 2022.
Leonardo Munoz | Getty Images
Asset management giant BlackRock appeared to take the first steps toward an ether ETF on Thursday, sparking a rally in the crypto currency.
The website for Delaware’s Division of Corporations showed that an iShares Ethereum Trust was registered on Thursday. A similar notice for the iShares Bitcoin Trust came one week before BlackRock’s filing for a bitcoin ETF in June.
BlackRock did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The firm’s iShares product is the leader in exchange-traded funds with more than $2.3 trillion in assets under management.
The price of ether jumped 7% on Thursday, topping $2,000 for the first time since April. The price of bitcoin saw a similar jump in price when asset managers began filing to launch ETFs this summer.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has still not approved a bitcoin ETF. The regulator has long opposed such a fund and blocked Grayscale’s attempt to convert its bitcoin trust product into an ETF, though a court overruled that decision in August.
The SEC did not appeal that court decision but still could choose to block Grayscale’s conversion and the other bitcoin funds in the pipeline, including BlackRock’s, for other reasons.
If the SEC does allow bitcoin ETFs, then ether funds would likely be next in line. Ether is the second most popular crypto currency behind bitcoin.
