Financial services giant Fidelity is seeking permission to stake a portion of the Ether (ETH) held by its proposed spot Ether exchange-traded fund (ETF), to provide investors with additional income.
In a 19b-4 amendment filed to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on March 18, Fidelity wrote that if the ETF were to be approved, the fund would stake an undisclosed amount of its assets through one or more trusted staking providers.
“The Sponsor may, from time to time, stake a portion of the Fund’s assets through one or more trusted staking providers, which may include an affiliate of the Sponsor (“Staking Providers”),” wrote Fidelity in its amended application.
Fidelity did not disclose a specific staking provider. There are several Ether staking providers in the market today, including Lido DAO, RocketPool, and StakeWise.
The price of Lido DAO — the largest liquid Ethereum staking provider — briefly jumped 6% from $2.48 to $2.56 on the news before falling back to $2.49, per TradingView data.
However, Lido DAO has fallen 27% in the last week, amid a wider pullback for Ether and many of the tokens within its ecosystem.
Fidelity is one of eight fund issuers to have lodged an Ether ETF application — currently awaiting approval by the SEC.
On Feb. 8, Ark 21Shares also added plans to stake a portion of its proposed fund’s ETH. Days later, Franklin Templeton entered the spot Ether ETF race, also with the intention to stake a portion of the ETF’s Ether to produce additional income.
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It entered the running on Nov. 18 last year and is joined by other firms including the world’s largest investment firm BlackRock, Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest, and crypto asset manager Grayscale.
If the SEC does not approve all eight ETFs by Van Eck’s final deadline on May 23, the entire roster of prospective issuers will have to refile their applications at a later date.
Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said the likelihood of a spot Ether ETF approval by Van Eck’s deadline in May was sitting at just 35%.
In January, Blachunas pegged the odds of approval at 70% but told Cointelegraph the SEC’s “radio silence” to prospective fund issuers and political blowback against Chair Gary Gensler were bad signs for the approval process.
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