Coinbase met with SEC over spot Ethereum ETFs

According to documents about the meeting, Coinbase said that the ether ETFs would also be counted as commodity-based shares

article-image

Artwork by Crystal Le

share

Coinbase met with officials at the Securities and Exchange Commission to discuss Grayscale’s proposed ether ETF. 

Attorneys from Davis Polk, who represent Grayscale, were also present according to documents from the SEC. Various members of the SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets were present.

A presentation from Coinbase was given at the meeting, though it’s not clear what else was discussed. In the SEC’s meeting disclosure, the agency included the Coinbase presentation in its filing.

Per Coinbase’s presentation, shares of a potential ether ETF would be categorized as commodity-based shares, the same as the bitcoin ETFs. 

Read more: Ether is the Schrödinger’s cat of crypto

Coinbase also said, “spot markets for ETH are highly indicative of a market resilient to fraud and manipulation.” Coinbase also said that it’ll have a surveillance-sharing agreement in place with the CME to “assist in surveilling for fraud and manipulation.”

However, the meeting may not be a “good sign,” according to Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas. 

Read more: Ethereum spot ETFs are next

“Normally I’d say this was [a] good sign but as far as I know the Staff has not given any comments yet to the issuers, which is not a good sign as we [passed] when they gave comments on btc ETFs. Further, there’s no court loss hovering over,” he wrote in a post on X.

Loading Tweet..

Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart said, “no comments so far isn’t a great look.” Earlier this year, Seyffart told Blockworks that he believed there was a 60% chance that the SEC would greenlight the ETH ETFs in May.

The Coinbase presentation also included data to show that the ether futures markets and the spot markets are as strong as bitcoin markets, a fact that ETF Store president Nate Geraci pointed out on X.

“I’m not sure what grounds for disapproval of spot ether ETFs would be,” Geraci added.

Loading Tweet..

Earlier this week, the SEC delayed decisions on BlackRock and Fidelity’s spot ETH ETF applications. The delays were expected, however, with experts saying that the SEC will decide on the ether ETFs in May.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Upcoming Events

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

morpho 2 graphic.png

Research

Utilizing a ‘DeFi Mullet’ approach, Coinbase’s Bitcoin-backed loans integration with Morpho demonstrates a powerful blueprint for CEXs to monetize dormant assets by expanding adoption of wrapped products (cbBTC, USDC) while also supporting native and/or preferred DeFi ecosystems (Base) which can further lead to downstream growth in onchain liquidity and increased utilization of the related assets.

article-image

The fate of Coinbase has been intertwined with Bitcoin long before the company went public in 2021

article-image

Forward Guidance’s Felix Jauvin noted that he’s bullish on both crypto and bitcoin on a “mean reversion basis”

article-image

This is the largest equity investment that Framework Ventures has ever made,” Framework’s Michael Anderson exclusively told Blockworks

article-image

The stickiness could be the result of bear market conditions where users are swapping out of riskier tokens to hold stablecoins on Solana apps instead, a Blockworks Research analyst said

article-image

The dollar index is down 3.7% today from Wednesday, and consumer sentiment fell to lower than expected

article-image

Ethereum core developers finalize Pectra’s May 7 launch and wrap scoping of the next upgrade