This has never happened before, and here it is again: the SEC has pushed back the deadline for applications for Ethereum-ETFs
The community has been following the developments around spot Ethereum ETFs for a long time. However, now we will have to wait a few more months — the American SEC has shifted the deadline for reviewing applications to the end of May.
The US SEC announced the postponement on Tuesday, March 19. Now the new deadline looks like this — May 24 for making a final decision on the application from ARK Invest and 21Shares; May 30 for Hashdex. ARK/21Shares submitted an updated application for ETHETF in early February.
In addition, the deadlines for reviewing applications from such industry giants as BlackRock, Fidelity and Grayscale, which also updated the application just a week earlier, are being shifted.
"The Commission considers it advisable to set a longer deadline for making a decision on the proposed applications. It takes more time to fully address the issues raised," the SEC said in a statement.
It is noteworthy that not so long ago — at the end of January — the representative of the Commission, Hester Pierce, known in the cryptocurrency community as "cryptomama", called for the approval of a financial instrument and stated that this would not even require a court decision.
After the SEC's statement, the price of Ethereum fell by about 8%, which underlines the sensitivity of the market to the decisions of the regulator. At the time of writing, ETH is trading at $3,345, having started a ~2.5% recovery today.
As the situation developed, the crypto community increasingly lost faith that the approval of spot ETFs on Ethereum was possible in principle. The market sentiment is well illustrated by Polymarket — according to the platform, only 24% of respondents now believe in the launch of ETHETF.
For comparison, in January, 75% of Polymarket users expressed confidence in the imminent approval of applications for spot bitcoin ETFs.