Franklin Templeton Joins Ethereum ETF Race

By Helene Braun of CoinDesk

Franklin Templeton has applied for a spot Ethereum exchange-traded fund, a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows.

The asset manager joins BlackRock, Fidelity, Ark and 21Shares, Grayscale, VanEck, Invesco and Galaxy, and Hashdex, who have all submitted applications in recent months.

The filing comes roughly four weeks after Franklin, among nine other issuers, launched a spot bitcoin ETF. Asset management giant BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) have seen the most demand for their funds. Meanwhile, Franklin has had a less successful start, with only roughly $70 million in inflows since launching.

IBIT has attracted over $3.5 billion worth of bitcoin in the past month, while Fidelity has seen roughly $3 billion.

The SEC has so far delayed all decisions to approve an Ethereum ETF, as expected by experts. JP Morgan currently sees a less than 50% chance that such a fund would be approved before May. Although traders from Polymarket, a decentralized prediction platform, seem to be betting, there is a 50% chance that the ETFs will be approved by May 31.

Franklin Templeton, often deemed “old-fashioned,” has made several pushes into crypto in recent years since CEO Jenny Johnson took over the company in 2020. Most recently, on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), the asset manager put laser eyes on its logo that features Ben Franklin as a nod to the crypto culture.

The price of ether climbed 5.5% in the last 24 hours, trading near $2,647, while bitcoin (BTC) hit $50,000 on Monday for the first time since late 2021.

According to Standard Chartered, Ether will hit $4,000 around the time the ethereum ETF is approved in May.