Grayscale, the world’s largest digital asset manager, has sent $1.01 billion worth of Ether to the Coinbase Prime trading platform ahead of the launch of spot Ether ETFs.
Data from Arkham Intelligence shows that the Grayscale Ethereum Trust sent 292,000 ETH nine hours ago, worth $1.01 billion, to Coinbase Prime.
The movement of these funds comes as the digital asset manager gets ready to transform the Ethereum Trust into two ETFs.
Grayscale Moves $1B Ethereum to Coinbase Prime
In an X post, Bloomberg ETF strategist Eric Balchunas opined that Grayscale was moving funds from its Trust to a new Grayscale Ethereum mini-ETF.
Balchunas opined that the recent movement of funds indicated that the ETF would start trading with $1 billion. The asset manager also imposed a 15 basis point fee as ETF issuers engage in a fee war to gain a competitive edge.
Grayscale has around $10 billion in assets under management and is among the applicants for spot Ether ETFs. The firm plans to transform its Ethereum Trust into an ETF at a 2.5% fee.
Grayscale plans to use its ETH Mini Trust ETF to attract retail investors. The shares of the mini trust also differ from the Grayscale ETHE ETF. The mini-trust offers a small portion of underlying ETH compared to ETH, meaning the price will be lower.
Spot Ether ETF Get SEC Greenlight
The US securities regulator approved several spot Ether ETFs on Monday, meaning these products will start trading on July 23.
The ETF products approved by the US securities regulator include those offered by 21Shares, Bitwise, BlackRock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Invesco Galaxy, and VanEck.
The recent documentation by the SEC did not contain official adequate documentation from the SEC on the Grayscale Ethereum ETFs. However, Bloomberg’s James Seyffart noted that these ETFs will also likely start to trade on Tuesday, as the reason behind the hold-up was uncertain.
Seyffary added that this hold-up was expected because the Grayscale products were spinoffs. This made the Ethereum products more complex and time-intensive than launching new funds.
The final approval of spot ETH ETFs comes a day after US President Joe Biden announced that he was dropping out of the US presidential race.
Approving the 19b-4 filings for these products in May was primarily seen as political as Republican presidential contender Donald Trump took a pro-crypto stance.
Ether has yet to react despite the highly-anticipated approval of these products. ETH is down 0.8% in the last 24 hours to trade at $3,454 on July 23 at 03:39 a.m. EST. ETH’s performance is in stark contrast to how Bitcoin performed after spot ETH approvals in January.
