Key Takeaways
Nasdaq submitted an updated filing to the SEC to add staking to the iShares Ethereum Trust issued by BlackRock. This came after ETHA saw $499 million in daily inflows, but the price of ETH has not moved much in recent hours.
According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on the 17th of July, BlackRock is looking to upgrade its iShares Ethereum Trust [ETHA] to include staking.
The filing was submitted by Nasdaq “to permit staking of ether held by the Trust”.
Nasdaq and BlackRock were not the first ETF issuers to push to update their Ethereum spot ETF to include the option for staking.
In March, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) group and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) proposed adding ETH staking to Fidelity, Franklin, and Bitwise ETFs.
Rival issuers 21Shares and Grayscale have also previously submitted such proposals.
ETHA is the largest spot Ethereum ETF by assets under management. As of the 17th of July, it had $7.9 billion in assets under management and saw a $499 million inflow on the 16th of July.
Speaking on the topic, Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart clarified that staking was “not yet done“. He said,
“Staking is not “done”. There are plenty of ETH staking ETF filings already on the books. Final deadline for earlier filings is in late October.”
Seyffart added,
“The Blackrock filing today won’t have a final deadline until ~April 2026 (but we think staking will likely be approved by at least 4Q25)”.
How have the market and its participants reacted?
Vance Spencer, co-founder of crypto-native investment firm Framework Ventures, commented on X:
“Maybe you didn’t expect Lubin and Tom Lee to lead the TradFi bandwagon to ETH, and BlackRock to add staking just as the wheels start to turn. But that’s what’s happening. There’s no need to be upset.”
Spencer referred to Joe Lubin and Tom Lee in his post. Lubin is the chairman of SharpLink Gaming, and Lee is a top Wall Street strategist and Head of Research at Fundstrat.
SharpLink [SBET] has the largest ETH reserves, surpassing even the Ethereum Foundation. It was reported that SharpLink would offer up to $5 billion of common stock to acquire more ETH.
Spencer’s post highlights TradFi’s growing interest in Ethereum. He pointed to BlackRock’s move to add staking to its ETH ETF.
This signals rising institutional confidence in Ethereum’s long-term value. Spencer suggested the shift is already underway, and there’s no reason to be upset.
The price of Ethereum [ETH] has not reacted much since the news came out. The past two hours of trading before the time of writing saw ETH fall 0.53% to $3,409.
However, the leading altcoin has outperformed the industry giant Bitcoin [BTC] and its competing Layer 1 altcoin Solana [SOL] comfortably over the past week.
