Asset management giant BlackRock appeared to take the first steps toward an ether ETF on Thursday, sparking a rally in the cryptocurrency.
The website for Delaware's Division of Corporations showed that an iShares Ethereum Trust was registered Thursday. A similar notice for the iShares Bitcoin Trust came one week before BlackRock's filing for a bitcoin ETF in June.
BlackRock declined comment on the matter. 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. Bitcoin's price saw a similar rise 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 cryptocurrency behind bitcoin.
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