American digital asset manager Grayscale Investments confirmed its Ethereum Trust (ETHE) has gained regulatory approval from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) for retail trading. The news was announced in a press release issued on May 23.
Set to become the first publicly-quoted security based on Ethereum (ETH), ETHE received the go ahead from FINRA to trade on over-the-counter (OTC) markets.
The product will follow Grayscale’s equivalent Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum Classic (ETC) Trusts, which are already publicly quoted.
The launch remains subject to full compatibility with the Depository Trust Company (DTC), the world’s largest securities depository with more than $35 trillion of securities deposited.
“There will be no trading volume in the Shares’ public quotation until the Shares are DTC eligible, which ETHE is expected to receive soon,” the press release stated. It continued:
“Investors will be able to find current financial disclosure and Real-Time Level 2 quotes for Shares of ETHE on the OTC Markets website once trading commences.”
The step comes a week after Grayscale reported that its Bitcoin Investment Trust (BIT) took the lion’s share of investments among clients in Q1 this year, as April sparked a sudden bull run in the largest cryptocurrency.
The company, begun by Barry Silbert’s Digital Currency Group in 2013, operates a total of ten cryptocurrency products, including those tied to litecoin (LTC), stellar (XLM) and zcash (ZEC).
