The approved ether ETFs explicitly excluded staking

Inherited archive entry · retained from the earlier edition. Its factual, legal and policy claims have not all been reverified for 19 September 2026. Research scope.

What the order approved, and when

On 23 May 2024, the SEC issued an order, Release No. 34-100224, granting accelerated approval to rule changes from NYSE Arca, Nasdaq and Cboe BZX that let those exchanges list and trade shares of ether-based trusts. The order approves the exchange rule permitting a listing; it does not launch a product. Trading did not begin until the SEC separately declared the funds' registration statements effective, which a contemporaneous law-firm account of the filings dates to 22 July 2024, with trading starting the next day — a two-month gap between rule approval and an investable product.

What the filings excluded, in the order's own words

The order addresses, in a footnote, comment letters asking 'whether to permit a Trust to stake its ether.' Its answer is unambiguous: 'The Proposals under consideration by the Commission in this order do not contemplate staking of the Trusts' ether. Accordingly, the relative benefits or drawbacks of staking are outside the scope of this order.' The order adds that any future proposal letting a trust's ether 'become[] subject to the Ethereum proof-of-stake validation or... earn additional ether' would require the relevant exchange to file a new rule change. Staking was not merely omitted from the initial product; it was placed outside what this approval covers at all.

What a holder gives up compared with staking

Ethereum's own documentation describes staking as depositing ETH 'to activate a validator, a participant in Ethereum's consensus protocol,' which then earns rewards for proposing and attesting to blocks — an active role that also carries slashing risk for misbehaviour. An ETF share represents indirect ownership of spot ether sitting in a trust that does none of this. The trust's ether is exposed to ether's price but earns none of the protocol-level reward that accrues only to capital actually staked, and the holder carries none of the technical or slashing risk either. The product converts a validator's role into a passive one, and the yield disappears along with the role.

Questions to carry forward

• Does a given ether investment vehicle disclose whether the underlying ether is staked, and where any staking yield goes?
• Would a future rule change permitting staking need the same accelerated-approval process this order used?
• Is the gap between an ETF's return and simply staking the same asset disclosed anywhere the holder is likely to read it?

Reading the order narrowly matters here: it approved a listing mechanism for unstaked ether exposure, said so explicitly, and left the staking question for a rule filing that, as of this order, had not been made.