Finance

Bitwise’s amended Ethereum ETF filing says Pantera interested in $100M buy

Asset management firm Bitwise has disclosed Pantera is interested in buying its upcoming spot Ether ETF, but it could spend more, less — or nothing at all.

Written by

Marcella Plazas

Published on

June 19, 2024

Asset management firm Bitwise revised its spot Ether
exchange-traded fund (ETF) Form S-1 registration statement, which included a potential $100 million investment in the ETF upon its trading launch.
Bitwise’s June 18 filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said investment firm Pantera Capital Management “has indicated an interest in purchasing an aggregate of up to $100 million of Shares” in the Ether ETF.
“However, because indications of interest are not binding agreements or commitments to purchase, these potential purchasers could determine to purchase more, fewer or no Shares,” the filing said.
A Form S-1 is a document submitted to the SEC before a security starts trading that includes information on financials, operations and risk analysis.

BTC price analysis flags “investor boredom and apathy”

Bitcoin may be trading within a rigid corridor, but the majority of hodlers are not seeing a return on investment evaporate as a result.
Summarizing current BTC price behavior as “establishing equilibrium,” Glassnode pointed to multiple on-chain metrics showing Bitcoin in a period of consolidation — not capitulation.
“Sideways price movement tends to manifest as investor boredom and apathy, which appears to be the dominant response across all Bitcoin markets,” it wrote.

*Bitwise 's Form S-1 filing. Source: SEC*

The filings are the final part of an approval process before the spot Ether ETFs are allowed to be publicly traded, an event that SEC Chair Gary Gensler believes will happen “sometime over the course of this summer.”
On May 23, the SEC approved 19b-4 filings from eight Ether ETF bidders, but the applications require Form S-1 approvals before the ETFs can begin trading on U.S. exchanges.

The amended filing comes on the same day that the SEC dropped its investigation into whether Ether is a security.
“The Enforcement Division of the SEC has notified us that it is closing its investigation into Ethereum 2.0,” Ethereum developer Consensys said in a June 19 X post.
“This means that the SEC will not bring charges alleging that sales of ETH are securities transactions,” the firm explained.