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BlackRock appears to be planning to launch a new staked Ethereum fund. Daniel Schweiger, a managing director at BlackRock, who filed the asset manager’s initial iShares Ethereum fund in late 2023, has also filed the iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF.

One of the first indications that a new exchange-traded fund (ETF) is being developed is the registration of the fund’s name in Delaware.

 

According to senior Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, a filing for the new iShares ETH staking fund is “coming soon.”

Nasdaq submitted an amended 19b-4 to include staking in BlackRock’s existing iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA). Competing cryptocurrency asset managers, such as Grayscale and 21 Shares, have also submitted proposals to update their Ethereum funds. As of November, ETHA, with nearly $11.5 billion in total holdings, is the largest Ethereum ETF by assets under management, according to SoSoValue.

Relatively few funds offering staking rewards have been approved despite a more lenient approach by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to allow additional cryptocurrency-related exchange-traded products to enter the market during the second Trump administration.

Grayscale recently became the first spot-market funds registered under the Securities Act of 1933 to permit staking rewards for holders, receiving approval in October for its U.S. Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHE) and Ethereum Mini Trust ETF (ETH) products.

REX-Osprey introduced a staking Solana ETF using the less common Investment Company Act of 1940. In September, REX-Osprey also launched an ETH staking fund under the 1940 Act ETF structure. Robert Mitchnick, Head of Digital Assets at BlackRock, has previously expressed his expectation that the SEC will approve ETH ETF staking as “a next phase.”