SEC chair says S-1 approvals for spot Ether ETFs in the summer

• SEC Chair Gary Gensler told lawmakers on Thursday that he sees spot Ethereum ETFs’ S-1 filings approval in the summer.
• The SEC Chair’s comments however did not offer much information, an ETF analyst noted.

Gary Gensler, the Chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), sees the recently approved spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs) getting the final nod for trading in the summer.

The SEC chair shared the outlook during a hearing with US lawmakers on Thursday, June 13.

Gensler’s remarks came during the Senate Banking Committee hearing that’s considering the US government’s 2025 budget for the Commission. 

Asked about the spot Ethereum ETFs, Gensler noted that he expects the SEC will have a final approval via the S-1s “sometime over the course of this summer.”

Summer it is, but

While the crypto community has known of the upcoming listing and trading since the regulator approved 19b-4 filings in May this year, Gensler’s comments now have a timeline in place. In this case, the industry is looking at the next three months, with the latest it could happen going by the SEC chair’s remarks being in September.

Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart says the SEC chair has not really offered much information when commenting that the ETH spot ETFs will launch “by the end of summer.”

Highlighting his earlier prediction that the SEC would probably finalize the approvals in early July, the analyst said:

“July was and is a complete guess. But I was more confident in saying that ETH ETFs will launch at some point this summer. That was sort of a given. Gensler not really giving us much of any info in his comments that Ethereum ETFs will launch “by the end of summer””

Ethereum surged in May after the initial SEC nod to 19b-4s, but with the broader crypto market struggling and the approvals likely already priced in, the latest comments had little upside impact on Ether.

The cryptocurrency trades around $3,470, nearly 10% down this past week.