2023-20959. Self-Regulatory Organizations; Cboe BZX Exchange, Inc.; Notice of Filing of Proposed Rule Change To List and Trade Shares of the ARK 21Shares Ethereum ETF Under BZX Rule 14.11(e)(4), Commodity-Based Trust Shares

September 21, 2023.

Pursuant to Section 19(b)(1) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Act”),^[1] and Rule 19b–4 thereunder,^[2] notice is hereby given that on September 6, 2023, Cboe BZX Exchange, Inc. (the “Exchange” or “BZX”) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “Commission”) the proposed rule change as described in Items I, II, and III below, which Items have been prepared by the Exchange. The Commission is publishing this notice to solicit comments on the proposed rule change from interested persons.

I. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement of the Terms of Substance of the Proposed Rule Change

Cboe BZX Exchange, Inc. (“BZX” or the “Exchange”) is filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“Commission” or “SEC”) a proposed rule change to list and trade shares of the ARK 21Shares Ethereum ETF (the “Trust”),^[3] under BZX Rule 14.11(e)(4), Commodity-Based Trust Shares.

The text of the proposed rule change is also available on the Exchange's website ( http://markets.cboe.com/​us/​equities/​regulation/​rule_​filings/​bzx/​), at the Exchange's Office of the Secretary, and at the Commission's Public Reference Room.

II. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement of the Purpose of, and Statutory Basis for, the Proposed Rule Change

In its filing with the Commission, the Exchange included statements concerning the purpose of and basis for the proposed rule change and discussed any comments it received on the proposed rule change. The text of these statements may be examined at the places specified in Item IV below. The Exchange has prepared summaries, set forth in sections A, B, and C below, of the most significant aspects of such statements.

A. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement of the Purpose of, and Statutory Basis for, the Proposed Rule Change

1. Purpose

The Exchange proposes to list and trade the Shares of the ARK 21Shares Ethereum Trust ^[4] under BZX Rule 14.11(e)(4),^[5] which governs the listing and trading of Commodity-Based Trust Shares on the Exchange.^[6]

According to the Registration Statement, the Trust is neither an investment company registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended,^[7] nor a commodity pool for purposes of the Commodity Exchange Act (“CEA”), and neither the Trust nor the Sponsor is subject to regulation as a commodity pool operator or a commodity trading adviser in connection with the Shares.

ARK 21Shares Ethereum Trust

21Shares US LLC is the sponsor of the Trust (the “Sponsor”). The Bank of New York Mellon will be the administrator (“Administrator”) and transfer agent (“Transfer Agent”). Foreside Global Services, LLC will be the marketing agent (“Marketing Agent”) in connection with the creation and redemption of “Baskets” of Shares. ARK Investment Management LLC (“ARK”) will provide assistance in the marketing of the Shares and serve as a sub-adviser. Coinbase Custody Trust Company, LLC, a third-party regulated custodian (the “Custodian”), will be responsible for custody of the Trust's ether.

According to the Registration Statement, each Share will represent a fractional undivided beneficial interest in the ether held by the Trust. The Trust's assets will consist of ether held by the Custodian on behalf of the Trust. The Trust generally does not intend to hold cash or cash equivalents. However, there may be situations where the Trust will unexpectedly hold cash on a temporary basis.

The Trust will be neither an investment company registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended,^[8] nor a commodity pool for purposes of the Commodity Exchange Act (“CEA”), and neither the Trust nor the Sponsor is subject to regulation as a commodity pool operator or a commodity trading adviser in connection with the Shares.

When the Trust sells or redeems its Shares, it will do so in “in-kind” transactions in blocks of 5,000 Shares (a “Creation Basket”) at the Trust's NAV. Authorized participants will deliver, or facilitate the delivery of, ether to the Trust's account with the Custodian in exchange for Shares when they purchase Shares, and the Trust, through the Custodian, will deliver ether to such authorized participants when they redeem Shares with the Trust. Authorized participants may then offer Shares to the public at prices that depend on various factors, including the supply and demand for Shares, the value of the Trust's assets, and market conditions at the time of a transaction. Shareholders who buy or sell Shares during the day from their broker may do so at a premium or discount relative to the NAV of the Shares of the Trust.

As noted above, the Trust is designed to protect investors against the risk of losses through fraud and insolvency that arise by holding digital assets, including ether, on centralized platforms. Specifically, the Trust is designed to protect investors as follows:

(i) Assets of the Trust Protected From Insolvency

The Trust's ether will be held by its Custodian,^[9] which is a New York chartered trust company overseen by the NYDFS and a qualified custodian under Rule 206–4 of the Investment Adviser Act. The Custodian will custody the Trust's ether pursuant to a custody agreement, which requires the Custodian to maintain the Trust's ether in segregated accounts that clearly identify the Trust as owner of the accounts and assets held on those accounts; the segregation will be both from the proprietary property of the Custodian and the assets of any other customer. Such an arrangement is generally deemed to be “bankruptcy remote,” that is, in the event of an insolvency of the Custodian, assets held in such segregated accounts would not become property of the Custodian's estate and would not be available to satisfy claims of creditors of the Custodian. In addition, according to the Registration Statement, the Custodian carries fidelity insurance, which covers assets held by the Custodian in custody from risks such as theft of funds. These arrangements provide significant protections to investors and could have mitigated the type of losses incurred by investors in the numerous crypto-related insolvencies, including Celsius, Voyager, BlockFi and FTX.

(ii) Trust's Transfer Agent Will Instruct Disposition of Trust's Ether

According to the Registration Statement, except with respect to sale of ether from time to time to cover expenses of the Trust, the only time ether will move into or out from the Trust will be with respect to creations or redemptions of Shares of the Trust. Authorized Participants will deliver ether to the Trust's account with the Custodian or Subcustodian, as applicable, in exchange for Shares of the Trust, and the Trust, through the Custodian, will deliver ether to Authorized Participants when those Authorized Participants redeem Shares of the Trust. The creation and redemption procedures are administered by the Transfer Agent, the Bank of New York Mellon, an independent third party. In other words, according to the Registration Statement, with very limited exceptions, the Sponsor will not give instructions with respect to the transfer or disposition of the Trust's ether. Ether owned by the Trust will at all times be held by, and in the control of, the Custodian (or Subcustodian, as applicable), and transfer of such ether to or from the Custodian (or Subcustodian) will occur only in connection with creation and redemptions of Shares. This will provide safeguards against the movement of ether owned by the Trust by or to the Sponsor or affiliates of the Sponsor.

(iii) Trust's Assets Are Subject to Regular Audit

According to the Registration Statement, audit trails exist for all movement of ether within Custodian-controlled ether wallets and are audited annually for accuracy and completeness by an independent external audit firm. In addition, the Trust will be audited by an independent registered public accounting firm on a regular basis.

(iv) Trust Is Subject to the Exchange's Obligations of Companies Listed on the Exchange and Applicable Corporate Governance Requirements

The Trust will be subject to the obligations of companies listed on the Exchange set forth in BZX Rule 14.6, which require the listed companies to make public disclosure of material events and any notifications of deficiency by the Exchange, file and distribute period financial reports, engage independent public accountants registered with the Exchange, among other things. Such disclosures serve a key investor protection role. In addition, the Trust will be subject to the corporate governance requirements for companies listed on the Exchange set forth in BZX Rule 14.10.

Background

Ethereum is a decentralized smart contract platform that revolutionized the world of blockchain technology beyond its initial use case of peer-to-peer payments. It introduced the idea of “smart contracts,” self-executing agreements with predefined rules, enabling developers and entrepreneurs worldwide to code and deploy decentralized applications on top of the Ethereum network. Ether (ETH), the native crypto asset of the network, is the fuel that allows Ethereum to operate in the same way that we use oil to propel vehicles, heat buildings, and produce electricity in the physical world. Users must pay a “gas fee” or a transaction tax in ether for every transaction they perform on the network. The term “gas” refers to the unit that measures the computational effort required to execute specific operations on the Ethereum blockchain. Thus, ether is analogous to a digital commodity powering the Ethereum network. For instance, an entire virtual economy has emerged with ether as the unit of account and medium of exchange. This phenomenon is similar to the spontaneous adoption of commodities like coffee and, most notably, precious metals like gold as money by various civilizations throughout history, except this time, in a digital-native realm.

With more than 5,946 monthly active developers as of June 2023, Ethereum is the world's largest developer ecosystem. Moreover, the platform is explored and experimented with by various private banks and central banks globally. Since its launch in 2015, Ethereum has driven the evolution of the blockchain space with innovations, ranging from decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), digital identity solutions, and the tokenizations of off- chain, or as it's commonly referred to, “real-world” assets. Some of the most important innovations that have come out of DeFi include `stablecoins,' decentralized exchanges (DEXs), and automated lending protocols. Stablecoins maintain price parity with a target asset, such as the U.S. dollar. Decentralized exchanges (DEXs), such as Uniswap, allow users to trade assets without the need for an intermediary against an “automated market-maker” (AMM), settling trillions of dollars of value since their inception. As a final example, overcollateralized lending protocols like MakerDAO, Aave, or Compound have taken traditional credit risk out of the equation, relying instead on smart contract automation and operators to liquidate loans when the collateralization ratio falls below a predetermined threshold. These and many other DeFi innovations reveal one of the core value propositions of Ethereum—the ability to act as a credibly neutral settlement layer where developers can automate away the need for centralized intermediaries.

Much like bitcoin, access for U.S. retail investors to gain exposure to ether via a transparent and U.S. regulated, U.S. exchange-traded vehicle remains limited. Instead current options include: (i) facing the counter-party risk, legal uncertainty, technical risk, and complexity associated with accessing spot ether; or (ii) over-the-counter ether funds (“OTC Ether Funds”) with high management fees and potentially volatile premiums and discounts.^[10] Meanwhile, investors in other countries are able to use more traditional exchange listed and traded products (including exchange-traded funds holding physical ETH) to gain exposure to ether. Similarly, investors across Europe have access to products which trade on regulated exchanges and provide exposure to a broad array of spot crypto assets. U.S. investors, by contrast, are left with fewer and more risky means of getting ether exposure.^[11]

To this point, the lack of an ETP that holds spot ETH (a “Spot Ether ETP”) exposes U.S. investor assets to significant risk because investors that would otherwise seek cryptoasset exposure through a Spot Ether ETP are forced to find alternative exposure through fewer and more risky means. For example, investors in OTC Ether Funds are not afforded the benefits and protections of regulated Spot Ether ETPs, resulting in retail investors suffering losses due to drastic movements in the premium/discount of OTC Ether Funds. Many retail investors likely suffered losses due to this premium/discount in OTC Ether Fund trading; all such losses could have been avoided if a Spot Ether ETP had been available. Additionally, many U.S. investors that held their digital assets in accounts at FTX,^[12] Celsius Network LLC,^[13] BlockFi Inc.^[14] and Voyager Digital Holdings, Inc.^[15] have become unsecured creditors in the insolvencies of those entities. If a Spot Ether ETP was available, it is likely that at least a portion of the billions of dollars tied up in those proceedings would still reside in the brokerage accounts of U.S. investors, having instead been invested in a transparent, regulated, and well-understood structure—a Spot Ether ETP. To this point, approval of a Spot Ether ETP would represent a major win for the protection of U.S. investors in the cryptoasset space. The Trust, like all other series of Commodity-Based Trust Shares, is designed to protect investors against the risk of losses through fraud and insolvency that arise by holding digital assets, including ether, on centralized platforms.

Applicable Standard

The Commission has historically approved or disapproved exchange filings to list and trade series of Trust Issued Receipts, including spot-based Commodity-Based Trust Shares, on the basis of whether the listing exchange has in place a comprehensive surveillance sharing agreement with a regulated market of significant size related to the underlying commodity to be held.^[16] With this in mind, the CME Ether Futures market, which launched in February 2021, is the proper market to consider in determining whether there is a related regulated market of significant size.

The Commission has approved proposals related to the listing and trading of funds that would primarily hold CME Bitcoin Futures that are registered under the Securities Act of 1933 (“Bitcoin Futures ETPs”),^[17] finding that the CME Bitcoin Futures market represents a regulated market of significant size. Meanwhile, the Commission has continued to disapprove proposals to list and trade funds that would hold spot bitcoin (these proposed funds are nearly identical to the Trust, but proposed to hold bitcoin instead of ETH) (“Spot Bitcoin ETPs”) on the seemingly conflicting basis that the CME Bitcoin Futures market is not a regulated market of significant size. In the recently decided Grayscale Investments, LLC v Securities and Exchange Commission,^[18] however, the court resolved this conflict by finding that the SEC had failed to provide a coherent explanation as to why it had approved the Bitcoin Futures ETPs while disapproving the proposal to list and trade shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (the “Grayscale Bitcoin Trust Proposal”) and vacating the disapproval order.^[19]

As further discussed below, both the Exchange and the Sponsor believe that this proposal and the included analysis are sufficient to establish that the CME Ether Futures market represents a regulated market of significant size as it relates both to the CME Ether Futures market and to the spot ether market and that this proposal should be approved.

Investment Objective

The investment objective of the Trust will be to seek to track the performance of ether, as measured by the performance of the CME CF Ether-Dollar Reference Rate—New York Variant (the “Index”), adjusted for the Trust's expenses and other liabilities. In seeking to achieve its investment objective, the Trust will hold ether and will value the Shares daily based on the Index. The Trust will process all creations and redemptions in-kind in transactions with authorized participants. The Trust is not actively managed.

The Index

The Fund will use the Index to calculate the Trust's NAV. The administrator of the Index is CF Benchmarks Ltd. (the “Index Provider”). The Index currently uses substantially the same methodology as the CME CF Ether Dollar Reference Rate (“ERR”), including utilizing the same six ether exchanges, which is the underlying rate to determine settlement of CME Ether Futures contracts, except that the Index is calculated as of 4:00 p.m. ET, whereas the ERR is calculated as of 4:00 p.m. London time.

The Index, which was introduced on November 14, 2016 is based on materially the same methodology (except calculation time) as the Index Provider's ERR, which was first introduced on May 14, 2018 and is the rate on which ether futures contracts are cash-settled in U.S. dollars at the CME. The Index is designed based on the IOSCO Principals for Financial Benchmarks. The administrator of the Index is the Index Provider. The Index is calculated daily and aggregates the notional value of ether trading activity across major ether spot exchanges.

The Sponsor believes that the use of the Index is reflective of a reasonable valuation of the average spot price of ether and that resistance to manipulation is a priority aim of its design methodology. The methodology: (i) takes an observation period and divides it into equal partitions of time; (ii) then calculates the volume-weighted median of all transactions within each partition; and (iii) the value is determined from the arithmetic mean of the volume-weighted medians, equally weighted. By employing the foregoing steps, the Index thereby seeks to ensure that transactions in ether conducted at outlying prices do not have an undue effect on the value of a specific partition, large trades or clusters of trades transacted over a short period of time will not have an undue influence on the index level, and the effect of large trades at prices that deviate from the prevailing price are mitigated from having an undue influence on the benchmark level.

In addition, the Sponsor notes that an oversight function is implemented by the Index Provider in seeking to ensure that the Index is administered through codified policies for Index integrity. Index data and the description of the Index are based on information made publicly available by the Index Provider on its website at https://www.cfbenchmarks.com. The Trust will determine the value its Shares daily based on the value of ether as reflected by the Index. The Index is calculated daily and aggregates the notional value of ether trading activity across major ether spot exchanges. The Index is designed based on the IOSCO Principals for Financial Benchmarks. The Trust also uses the ether price determined by the Index to calculate its “Ether Holdings,” which is the aggregate U.S. Dollar value of ether in the Trust, based on the ether price determined by the Index, less its liabilities and expenses. “Ether Holdings per Share” is calculated by dividing Ether Holdings by the number of Shares currently outstanding. Ether Holdings and Ether Holdings per Share are not measures calculated in accordance with GAAP. Ether Holdings is not intended to be a substitute for the Trust's NAV calculated in accordance with GAAP, and Ether Holdings per Share is not intended to be a substitute for the Trust's NAV per Share calculated in accordance with GAAP.

The Index was created to facilitate financial products based on ether. It serves as a once-a-day benchmark rate of the U.S. dollar price of ether (USD/ETH), calculated as of 4:00 p.m. ET. The Index, which has been calculated and published since [•], aggregates the trade flow of several ether exchanges, during an observation window between 3:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. ET into the U.S. dollar price of one ether at 4:00 p.m. ET. Specifically, the Index is calculated based on the “Relevant Transactions” (as defined below) of all of its constituent ether exchanges, which are currently Coinbase, Bitstamp, Kraken, itBit, LMAX Digital and Gemini (the “Constituent Platforms”), as follows:

• All Relevant Transactions are added to a joint list, recording the time of execution, trade price and size for each transaction.
• The list is partitioned by timestamp into 12 equally-sized time intervals of five minute length.

• For each partition separately, the volume-weighted median trade price is calculated from the trade prices and sizes of all Relevant Transactions, i.e., across all Constituent Platforms. A volume-weighted median differs from a standard median in that a weighting factor, in this case trade size, is factored into the calculation.

• The Index is then determined by the equally-weighted average of the volume medians of all partitions.

The Index does not include any futures prices in its methodology. A “Relevant Transaction” is any cryptocurrency versus U.S. dollar spot trade that occurs during the observation window between 3:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. Eastern time on a Constituent Platform in the ETH/USD pair that is reported and disseminated by a Constituent Platform through its publicly available API and observed by the Index Provider. An oversight function is implemented by the Index Provider in seeking to ensure that the Index is administered through the Index Provider's codified policies for Index integrity.

The Sponsor believes that the use of the Index is reflective of a reasonable valuation of the average spot price of ether and that resistance to manipulation is a priority aim of its design methodology. The methodology: (i) takes an observation period and divides it into equal partitions of time; (ii) then calculates the volume-weighted median of all transactions within each partition; and (iii) the value is determined from the arithmetic mean of the volume-weighted medians, equally weighted. By employing the foregoing steps, the Index thereby seeks to ensure that transactions in ether conducted at outlying prices do not have an undue effect on the value of a specific partition, large trades or clusters of trades transacted over a short period of time will not have an undue influence on the index level, and the effect of large trades at prices that deviate from the prevailing price are mitigated from having an undue influence on the benchmark level.

Availability of Information

In addition to the price transparency of the Index, the Trust will provide information regarding the Trust's ether holdings as well as additional data regarding the Trust. The Trust will provide an Intraday Indicative Value (“IIV”) per Share updated every 15 seconds, as calculated by the Exchange or a third-party financial data provider during the Exchange's Regular Trading Hours (9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. E.T.). The IIV will be calculated by using the prior day's closing NAV per Share as a base and updating that value during Regular Trading Hours to reflect changes in the value of the Trust's ether holdings during the trading day.

The IIV disseminated during Regular Trading Hours should not be viewed as an actual real-time update of the NAV, which will be calculated only once at the end of each trading day. The IIV will be widely disseminated on a per Share basis every 15 seconds during the Exchange's Regular Trading Hours by one or more major market data vendors. In addition, the IIV will be available through on-line information services.

The website for the Trust, which will be publicly accessible at no charge, will contain the following information: (a) the current NAV per Share daily and the prior business day's NAV and the reported closing price; (b) the BZX Official Closing Price ^[20] in relation to the NAV as of the time the NAV is calculated and a calculation of the premium or discount of such price against such NAV; (c) data in chart form displaying the frequency distribution of discounts and premiums of the Official Closing Price against the NAV, within appropriate ranges for each of the four previous calendar quarters (or for the life of the Trust, if shorter); (d) the prospectus; and (e) other applicable quantitative information. The Trust will also disseminate the Trust's holdings on a daily basis on the Trust's website. The price of ether will be made available by one or more major market data vendors, updated at least every 15 seconds during Regular Trading Hours. Information about the Index, including key elements of how the Index is calculated, will be publicly available at https://www.cfbenchmarks.com/​.

The NAV for the Trust will be calculated by the Administrator once a day and will be disseminated daily to all market participants at the same time. Quotation and last-sale information regarding the Shares will be disseminated through the facilities of the Consolidated Tape Association (“CTA”).

Quotation and last sale information for ether is widely disseminated through a variety of major market data vendors, including Bloomberg and Reuters, as well as the Index. Information relating to trading, including price and volume information, in ether is available from major market data vendors and from the exchanges on which ether are traded. Depth of book information is also available from ether exchanges. The normal trading hours for ether exchanges are 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.

The Ether Custodian

The Custodian carefully considers the design of the physical, operational and cryptographic systems for secure storage of the Trust's private keys in an effort to lower the risk of loss or theft. The Custodian utilizes a variety of security measures to ensure that private keys necessary to transfer digital assets remain uncompromised and that the Trust maintains exclusive ownership of its assets. The operational procedures of the Custodian are reviewed by third-party advisors with specific expertise in physical security. The devices that store the keys will never be connected to the internet or any other public or private distributed network—this is colloquially known as “cold storage.” Only specific individuals are authorized to participate in the custody process, and no individual acting alone will be able to access or use any of the private keys. In addition, no combination of the executive officers of the Sponsor or the investment professionals managing the Trust, acting alone or together, will be able to access or use any of the private keys that hold the Trust's ether.

Net Asset Value

NAV means the total assets of the Trust including, but not limited to, all ether and cash, if any, less total liabilities of the Trust, each determined on the basis of generally accepted accounting principles. The Administrator will determine the NAV of the Trust on each day that the Exchange is open for regular trading, as promptly as practical after 4:00 p.m. EST. The NAV of the Trust is the aggregate value of the Trust's assets less its estimated accrued but unpaid liabilities (which include accrued expenses). In determining the Trust's NAV, the Administrator values the ether held by the Trust based on the price set by the Index as of 4:00 p.m. EST. The Administrator also determines the NAV per Share.

Creation and Redemption of Shares

According to the Registration Statement, on any business day, an authorized participant may place an order to create one or more baskets. Purchase orders must be placed by 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time, or the close of regular trading on the Exchange, whichever is earlier. The day on which an order is received is considered the purchase order date. The total deposit of ether required is an amount of ether that is in the same proportion to the total assets of the Trust, net of accrued expenses and other liabilities, on the date the order to purchase is properly received, as the number of Shares to be created under the purchase order is in proportion to the total number of Shares outstanding on the date the order is received. Each night, the Sponsor will publish the amount of ether that will be required in exchange for each creation order. The Administrator determines the required deposit for a given day by dividing the number of ether held by the Trust as of the opening of business on that business day, adjusted for the amount of ether constituting estimated accrued but unpaid fees and expenses of the Trust as of the opening of business on that business day, by the quotient of the number of Shares outstanding at the opening of business divided by 5,000. The procedures by which an authorized participant can redeem one or more Creation Baskets mirror the procedures for the creation of Creation Baskets.

Commodity-Based Trust Shares—Rule 14.11(e)(4)

The Shares will be subject to BZX Rule 14.11(e)(4), which sets forth the initial and continued listing criteria applicable to Commodity-Based Trust Shares. The Exchange will obtain a representation that the Trust's NAV will be calculated daily and that these values and information about the assets of the Trust will be made available to all market participants at the same time. The Exchange notes that, as defined in Rule 14.11(e)(4)(C)(i), the Shares will be: (a) issued by a trust that holds a specified commodity ^[21] deposited with the trust; (b) issued by such trust in a specified aggregate minimum number in return for a deposit of a quantity of the underlying commodity; and (c) when aggregated in the same specified minimum number, may be redeemed at a holder's request by such trust which will deliver to the redeeming holder the quantity of the underlying commodity.

Upon termination of the Trust, the Shares will be removed from listing. The Trustee, Delaware Trust Company, is a trust company having substantial capital and surplus and the experience and facilities for handling corporate trust business, as required under Rule 14.11(e)(4)(E)(iv)(a) and that no change will be made to the trustee without prior notice to and approval of the Exchange. The Exchange also notes that, pursuant to Rule 14.11(e)(4)(F), neither the Exchange nor any agent of the Exchange shall have any liability for damages, claims, losses or expenses caused by any errors, omissions or delays in calculating or disseminating any underlying commodity value, the current value of the underlying commodity required to be deposited to the Trust in connection with issuance of Commodity-Based Trust Shares; resulting from any negligent act or omission by the Exchange, or any agent of the Exchange, or any act, condition or cause beyond the reasonable control of the Exchange, its agent, including, but not limited to, an act of God; fire; flood; extraordinary weather conditions; war; insurrection; riot; strike; accident; action of government; communications or power failure; equipment or software malfunction; or any error, omission or delay in the reports of transactions in an underlying commodity. Finally, as required in Rule 14.11(e)(4)(G), the Exchange notes that any registered market maker (“Market Maker”) in the Shares must file with the Exchange in a manner prescribed by the Exchange and keep current a list identifying all accounts for trading in an underlying commodity, related commodity futures or options on commodity futures, or any other related commodity derivatives, which the registered Market Maker may have or over which it may exercise investment discretion. No registered Market Maker shall trade in an underlying commodity, related commodity futures or options on commodity futures, or any other related commodity derivatives, in an account in which a registered Market Maker, directly or indirectly, controls trading activities, or has a direct interest in the profits or losses thereof, which has not been reported to the Exchange as required by this Rule. In addition to the existing obligations under Exchange rules regarding the production of books and records (see, e.g., Rule 4.2), the registered Market Maker in Commodity-Based Trust Shares shall make available to the Exchange such books, records or other information pertaining to transactions by such entity or registered or non-registered employee affiliated with such entity for its or their own accounts for trading the underlying physical commodity, related commodity futures or options on commodity futures, or any other related commodity derivatives, as may be requested by the Exchange.

Trading Halts

With respect to trading halts, the Exchange may consider all relevant factors in exercising its discretion to halt or suspend trading in the Shares. The Exchange will halt trading in the Shares under the conditions specified in BZX Rule 11.18. Trading may be halted because of market conditions or for reasons that, in the view of the Exchange, make trading in the Shares inadvisable. These may include: (1) the extent to which trading is not occurring in the ether underlying the Shares; or (2) whether other unusual conditions or circumstances detrimental to the maintenance of a fair and orderly market are present. Trading in the Shares also will be subject to Rule 14.11(e)(4)(E)(ii), which sets forth circumstances under which trading in the Shares may be halted.

Trading Rules

The Exchange deems the Shares to be equity securities, thus rendering trading in the Shares subject to the Exchange's existing rules governing the trading of equity securities. BZX will allow trading in the Shares during all trading sessions on the Exchange. The Exchange has appropriate rules to facilitate transactions in the Shares during all trading sessions. As provided in BZX Rule 11.11(a) the minimum price variation for quoting and entry of orders in securities traded on the Exchange is $0.01 where the price is greater than $1.00 per share or $0.0001 where the price is less than $1.00 per share.

Surveillance

The Exchange believes that its surveillance procedures are adequate to properly monitor the trading of the Shares on the Exchange during all trading sessions and to deter and detect violations of Exchange rules and the applicable federal securities laws. Trading of the Shares through the Exchange will be subject to the Exchange's surveillance procedures for derivative products, including Commodity-Based Trust Shares. The issuer has represented to the Exchange that it will advise the Exchange of any failure by the Trust or the Shares to comply with the continued listing requirements, and, pursuant to its obligations under Section 19(g)(1) of the Exchange Act, the Exchange will surveil for compliance with the continued listing requirements. If the Trust or the Shares are not in compliance with the applicable listing requirements, the Exchange will commence delisting procedures under Exchange Rule 14.12. The Exchange may obtain information regarding trading in the Shares and ether Futures via the Intermarket Surveillance Group (“ISG”), from other exchanges who are members or affiliates of the ISG, or with which the Exchange has entered into a comprehensive surveillance sharing agreement.^[22]

Information Circular

Prior to the commencement of trading, the Exchange will inform its members in an Information Circular of the special characteristics and risks associated with trading the Shares. Specifically, the Information Circular will discuss the following: (i) the procedures for the creation and redemption of Baskets (and that the Shares are not individually redeemable); (ii) BZX Rule 3.7, which imposes suitability obligations on Exchange members with respect to recommending transactions in the Shares to customers; (iii) how information regarding the IIV and the Trust's NAV are disseminated; (iv) the risks involved in trading the Shares outside of Regular Trading Hours ^[23] when an updated IIV will not be calculated or publicly disseminated; (v) the requirement that members deliver a prospectus to investors purchasing newly issued Shares prior to or concurrently with the confirmation of a transaction; and (vi) trading information.

In addition, the Information Circular will advise members, prior to the commencement of trading, of the prospectus delivery requirements applicable to the Shares. Members purchasing the Shares for resale to investors will deliver a prospectus to such investors. The Information Circular will also discuss any exemptive, no-action and interpretive relief granted by the Commission from any rules under the Act.

CME Ether Futures ^[24]

CME began offering trading in ether futures (“CME Ether Futures”) in February 2021. Each contract represents 50 ether and is based on the CME CF Ether-Dollar Reference Rate.^[25] The contracts trade and settle like other cash-settled commodity futures contracts. Most measurable metrics related to CME Ether Futures have generally trended up since launch, although some metrics have slowed recently. For example, there were 76,293 CME ETH Futures contracts traded in July 2023 (approximately $7.3 billion) compared to 70,305 ($11.1 billion) and 158,409 ($7.5 billion) contracts traded in July 2021, and July 2022 respectively.^[26]

In addition, according to Sponsor's research, trading volume for CME Ether Futures amounts to a total volume of $6,123,830,768.67 for August 2023. This trading volume represents 3,646.26 in open interest for CME Ether Futures, with an average value of $319,051,613.52. For August 2023, there were a total of 72,223 contracts for CME Ether Futures (equivalent to 3,611,150 ETH).

Sponsor's analyses further demonstrate that the correlation in pricing between CME Ether Futures and Spot ETH is significantly correlated. Notably, the Sponsor performed a pairwise correlation of Ether daily returns across top centralized spot cryptocurrency exchanges and the CME from March 19, 2021 to September 5, 2023. The Sponsor's research indicates that daily correlation between the Spot ETH and the CME ETH Futures during this time period was over 99.88%.

Section 6(b)(5) and the Applicable Standards

The Commission has approved numerous series of Trust Issued Receipts,^[27] including Commodity-Based Trust Shares,^[28] to be listed on U.S. national securities exchanges. In order for any proposed rule change from an exchange to be approved, the Commission must determine that, among other things, the proposal is consistent with the requirements of Section 6(b)(5) of the Act, specifically including: (i) the requirement that a national securities exchange's rules are designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices; ^[29] and (ii) the requirement that an exchange proposal be designed, in general, to protect investors and the public interest. The Exchange believes that this proposal is consistent with the requirements of Section 6(b)(5) of the Act and that this filing sufficiently demonstrates that the CME Ether Futures market represents a regulated market of significant size and that, on the whole, the manipulation concerns previously articulated by the Commission are sufficiently mitigated to the point that they are outweighed by quantifiable investor protection issues that would be resolved by approving this proposal.

(i) Designed To Prevent Fraudulent and Manipulative Acts and Practices

In order to meet this standard in a proposal to list and trade a series of Commodity-Based Trust Shares, the Commission requires that an exchange demonstrate that there is a comprehensive surveillance-sharing agreement in place ^[30] with a regulated market of significant size. Both the Exchange and CME are members of ISG. The only remaining issue to be addressed is whether the ether Futures market constitutes a market of significant size, which both the Exchange and the Sponsor believe that it does. The terms “significant market” and “market of significant size” include a market (or group of markets) as to which: (a) there is a reasonable likelihood that a person attempting to manipulate the ETP would also have to trade on that market to manipulate the ETP, so that a surveillance-sharing agreement would assist the listing exchange in detecting and deterring misconduct; and (b) it is unlikely that trading in the ETP would be the predominant influence on prices in that market.^[31]

The Commission has also recognized that the “regulated market of significant size” standard is not the only means for satisfying Section 6(b)(5) of the act, specifically providing that a listing exchange could demonstrate that “other means to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices” are sufficient to justify dispensing with the requisite surveillance-sharing agreement.^[32 33]

(a) Manipulation of the ETP

The significant market test requires that there is a reasonable likelihood that a person attempting to manipulate the ETP would also have to trade on that market to manipulate the ETP, so that a surveillance-sharing agreement would assist the listing exchange in detecting and deterring misconduct. In light of the similarly high correlation between spot ETH/CME Ether Futures and spot bitcoin/CME Bitcoin Futures, applying the same rationale that the Commission applied to a Bitcoin Futures ETF in the Bitcoin Futures Approvals ^[34] also indicates that this test is satisfied for this proposal. In the Teucrium Approval, the SEC stated:

The CME “comprehensively surveils futures market conditions and price movements on a real-time and ongoing basis in order to detect and prevent price distortions, including price distortions caused by manipulative efforts.” Thus, the CME's surveillance can reasonably be relied upon to capture the effects on the CME futures market caused by a person attempting to manipulate the proposed futures ETP by manipulating the price of CME futures contracts, whether that attempt is made by directly trading on the CME futures market or indirectly by trading outside of the CME futures market. As such, when the CME shares its surveillance information with Arca, the information would assist in detecting and deterring fraudulent or manipulative misconduct related to the non-cash assets held by the proposed ETP.^[35]

The assumptions from this statement are also true for CME Ether Futures. CME Ether Futures pricing is based on pricing from spot ether markets. The statement from the Teucrium Approval that “CME's surveillance can reasonably be relied upon to capture the effects on the CME BTC futures market caused by a person attempting to manipulate the proposed futures ETP by manipulating the price of CME BTC futures contracts . . . indirectly by trading outside of the CME BTC futures market,” makes clear that the Commission believes that CME's surveillance can capture the effects of trading on the relevant spot markets on the pricing of CME BTC Futures. This same logic would extend to CME Ether Futures markets where CME's surveillance would be able to capture the effects of trading on the relevant spot markets on the pricing of CME Ether Futures. This was further acknowledged in the Grayscale lawsuit when Judge Rao stated “. . . the Commission in the Teucrium order recognizes that the futures prices are influenced by the spot prices, and the Commission concludes in approving futures ETPs that any fraud on the spot market can be adequately addressed by the fact that the futures market is a regulated one . . .” The Exchange agrees with the Commission on this point and notes that the pricing mechanism applicable to the Shares is similar to that of the CME Ether Futures. This view is also consistent with the Advisor's research.

Further, the Trust only allows for in-kind creation and redemption, which, as further described below, reduces the potential for manipulation of the Shares through manipulation of the Index or any of its individual constituents, again emphasizing that a potential manipulator of the Shares would have to manipulate the entirety of the ether spot market, which is led by the ether Futures market. As such, the part (a) of the significant market test outlined above is satisfied and that common membership in ISG between the Exchange and CME would assist the listing exchange in detecting and deterring misconduct in the Shares in the same way that it would be for both Bitcoin Futures ETPs and Spot Bitcoin ETPs.

(b) Predominant Influence on Prices in Spot and Ether Futures

The Exchange and Sponsor also believe that trading in the Shares would not be the predominant force on prices in the CME Ether Futures market for a number of reasons. First, because the Trust would not hold CME Ether Futures contracts, the only way that it could be the predominant force on prices in that market is through the spot markets that CME Ether Futures contracts use for pricing.^[36] The Sponsor notes that ether total 24-hour spot trading volume has averaged $9.4 billion over the year ending September 1, 2023.^[37] The Sponsor expects that the Trust would represent a very small percentage of this daily trading volume in the spot ether market even in its most aggressive projections for the Trust's assets and, thus, the Trust would not have an impact on the spot market and therefore could not be the predominant force on prices in the CME Ether Futures market. Second, much like the CME Bitcoin Futures market, the CME Ether Futures market has progressed and matured significantly. As the court found in the Grayscale Order, “Because the spot market is deeper and more liquid than the futures market, manipulation should be more difficult, not less.” The Exchange and sponsor agree with this sentiment and believe it applies equally to the spot ether and CME Ether Futures markets.

(c) Other Means To Prevent Fraudulent and Manipulative Acts and Practices

As noted above, the Commission also permits a listing exchange to demonstrate that “other means to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices” are sufficient to justify dispensing with the requisite surveillance-sharing agreement. The Exchange and Sponsor believe that such conditions are present.

The Exchange is proposing to take additional steps to those described above to supplement its ability to obtain information that would be helpful in detecting, investigating, and deterring fraud and market manipulation in the Commodity-Based Trust Shares. On June 21, 2023, the Exchange reached an agreement on terms with Coinbase, Inc. (“Coinbase”), an operator of a United States-based spot trading platform for ether that represents a substantial portion of US-based and USD denominated ether trading,^[38] to enter into a surveillance-sharing agreement (“Spot Crypto SSA”) and executed an associated term sheet. Based on this agreement on terms, the Exchange and Coinbase will finalize and execute a definitive agreement that the parties expect to be executed prior to allowing trading of the Commodity-Based Trust Shares.

The Spot Crypto SSA is expected to be a bilateral surveillance-sharing agreement between the Exchange and Coinbase that is intended to supplement the Exchange's market surveillance program. The Spot Crypto SSA is expected to have the hallmarks of a surveillance-sharing agreement between two members of the ISG, which would give the Exchange supplemental access to data regarding spot ether trades on Coinbase where the Exchange determines it is necessary as part of its surveillance program for the Commodity-Based Trust Shares.^[39] This means that the Exchange expects to receive market data for orders and trades from Coinbase, which it will utilize in surveillance of the trading of Commodity-Based Trust Shares. In addition, the Exchange can request further information from Coinbase related to spot ether trading activity on the Coinbase exchange platform, if the Exchange determines that such information would be necessary to detect and investigate potential manipulation in the trading of the Commodity-Based Trust Shares.^[40]

(ii) Designed To Protect Investors and the Public Interest

The Exchange believes that the proposal is designed to protect investors and the public interest. Over the past several years, U.S. investor exposure to ether through OTC Ether Funds is greater than $5 billion. With that growth, so too has grown the quantifiable investor protection issues to U.S. investors through premium/discount volatility and management fees for OTC Ether Funds. The Exchange believes that, as described above, the concerns related to the prevention of fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices have been sufficiently addressed to be consistent with the Act and, to the extent that the Commission disagrees with that assertion, such concerns are now at the very least outweighed by investor protection concerns. As such, the Exchange believes that approving this proposal (and comparable proposals) provides the Commission with the opportunity to allow U.S. investors with access to ether in a regulated and transparent exchange-traded vehicle that would act to limit risk to U.S. investors by: (i) reducing premium and discount volatility; (ii) reducing management fees through meaningful competition; (iii) reducing risks and costs associated with investing in ether Futures ETFs and operating companies that are imperfect proxies for ether exposure; and (iv) providing an alternative to custodying spot ether.

2. Statutory Basis

The Exchange believes that the proposal is consistent with Section 6(b) of the Act ^[41] in general and Section 6(b)(5) of the Act ^[42] in particular in that it is designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices, to promote just and equitable principles of trade, to foster cooperation and coordination with persons engaged in facilitating transactions in securities, to remove impediments to and perfect the mechanism of a free and open market and a national market system and, in general, to protect investors and the public interest.

The Commission has approved numerous series of Trust Issued Receipts,^[43] including Commodity-Based Trust Shares,^[44] to be listed on U.S. national securities exchanges. In order for any proposed rule change from an exchange to be approved, the Commission must determine that, among other things, the proposal is consistent with the requirements of Section 6(b)(5) of the Act, specifically including: (i) the requirement that a national securities exchange's rules are designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices; ^[45] and (ii) the requirement that an exchange proposal be designed, in general, to protect investors and the public interest. The Exchange believes that this proposal is consistent with the requirements of Section 6(b)(5) of the Act and that this filing sufficiently demonstrates that the CME Ether Futures market represents a regulated market of significant size and that, on the whole, the manipulation concerns previously articulated by the Commission are sufficiently mitigated to the point that they are outweighed by quantifiable investor protection issues that would be resolved by approving this proposal.

(i) Designed To Prevent Fraudulent and Manipulative Acts and Practices

In order to meet this standard in a proposal to list and trade a series of Commodity-Based Trust Shares, the Commission requires that an exchange demonstrate that there is a comprehensive surveillance-sharing agreement in place ^[46] with a regulated market of significant size. Both the Exchange and CME are members of ISG. The only remaining issue to be addressed is whether the ether Futures market constitutes a market of significant size, which both the Exchange and the Sponsor believe that it does. The terms “significant market” and “market of significant size” include a market (or group of markets) as to which: (a) there is a reasonable likelihood that a person attempting to manipulate the ETP would also have to trade on that market to manipulate the ETP, so that a surveillance-sharing agreement would assist the listing exchange in detecting and deterring misconduct; and (b) it is unlikely that trading in the ETP would be the predominant influence on prices in that market.^[47]

The Commission has also recognized that the “regulated market of significant size” standard is not the only means for satisfying Section 6(b)(5) of the act, specifically providing that a listing exchange could demonstrate that “other means to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices” are sufficient to justify dispensing with the requisite surveillance-sharing agreement.^{[48]  [49]}

(a) Manipulation of the ETP

The significant market test requires that there is a reasonable likelihood that a person attempting to manipulate the ETP would also have to trade on that market to manipulate the ETP, so that a surveillance-sharing agreement would assist the listing exchange in detecting and deterring misconduct. In light of the similarly high correlation between spot ETH/CME Ether Futures and spot bitcoin/CME Bitcoin Futures, applying the same rationale that the Commission applied to a Bitcoin Futures ETF in the Bitcoin Futures Approvals ^[50] also indicates that this test is satisfied for this proposal. In the Teucrium Approval, the SEC stated:

The CME “comprehensively surveils futures market conditions and price movements on a real-time and ongoing basis in order to detect and prevent price distortions, including price distortions caused by manipulative efforts.” Thus, the CME's surveillance can reasonably be relied upon to capture the effects on the CME futures market caused by a person attempting to manipulate the proposed futures ETP by manipulating the price of CME futures contracts, whether that attempt is made by directly trading on the CME futures market or indirectly by trading outside of the CME futures market. As such, when the CME shares its surveillance information with Arca, the information would assist in detecting and deterring fraudulent or manipulative misconduct related to the non-cash assets held by the proposed ETP.^[51]

The assumptions from this statement are also true for CME Ether Futures. CME Ether Futures pricing is based on pricing from spot ether markets. The statement from the Teucrium Approval that “CME's surveillance can reasonably be relied upon to capture the effects on the CME BTC futures market caused by a person attempting to manipulate the proposed futures ETP by manipulating the price of CME BTC futures contracts . . . indirectly by trading outside of the CME BTC futures market,” makes clear that the Commission believes that CME's surveillance can capture the effects of trading on the relevant spot markets on the pricing of CME BTC Futures. This same logic would extend to CME Ether Futures markets where CME's surveillance would be able to capture the effects of trading on the relevant spot markets on the pricing of CME Ether Futures. This was further acknowledged in the Grayscale lawsuit when Judge Rao stated “. . . the Commission in the Teucrium order recognizes that the futures prices are influenced by the spot prices, and the Commission concludes in approving futures ETPs that any fraud on the spot market can be adequately addressed by the fact that the futures market is a regulated one. . .” The Exchange agrees with the Commission on this point and notes that the pricing mechanism applicable to the Shares is similar to that of the CME Ether Futures. This view is also consistent with the Advisor's research.

Further, the Trust only allows for in-kind creation and redemption, which, as further described below, reduces the potential for manipulation of the Shares through manipulation of the Index or any of its individual constituents, again emphasizing that a potential manipulator of the Shares would have to manipulate the entirety of the ether spot market, which is led by the ether Futures market. As such, the part (a) of the significant market test outlined above is satisfied and that common membership in ISG between the Exchange and CME would assist the listing exchange in detecting and deterring misconduct in the Shares in the same way that it would be for both Bitcoin Futures ETPs and Spot Bitcoin ETPs.

(b) Predominant Influence on Prices in Spot and Ether Futures

The Exchange and Sponsor also believe that trading in the Shares would not be the predominant force on prices in the CME Ether Futures market for a number of reasons. First, because the Trust would not hold CME Ether Futures contracts, the only way that it could be the predominant force on prices in that market is through the spot markets that CME Ether Futures contracts use for pricing.^[52] The Sponsor notes that ether total 24-hour spot trading volume has averaged $9.4 billion over the year ending September 1, 2023.^[53] The Sponsor expects that the Trust would represent a very small percentage of this daily trading volume in the spot ether market even in its most aggressive projections for the Trust's assets and, thus, the Trust would not have an impact on the spot market and therefore could not be the predominant force on prices in the CME Ether Futures market. Second, much like the CME Bitcoin Futures market, the CME Ether Futures market has progressed and matured significantly. As the court found in the Grayscale Order, “Because the spot market is deeper and more liquid than the futures market, manipulation should be more difficult, not less.” The Exchange and sponsor agree with this sentiment and believe it applies equally to the spot ether and CME Ether Futures markets.

(c) Other Means To Prevent Fraudulent and Manipulative Acts and Practices

As noted above, the Commission also permits a listing exchange to demonstrate that “other means to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices” are sufficient to justify dispensing with the requisite surveillance-sharing agreement. The Exchange and Sponsor believe that such conditions are present.

The Exchange is proposing to take additional steps to those described above to supplement its ability to obtain information that would be helpful in detecting, investigating, and deterring fraud and market manipulation in the Commodity-Based Trust Shares. On June 21, 2023, the Exchange reached an agreement on terms with Coinbase, an operator of a United States-based spot trading platform for ether that represents a substantial portion of US-based and USD denominated ether trading, to enter into a Spot Crypto SSA and executed an associated term sheet. Based on this agreement on terms, the Exchange and Coinbase will finalize and execute a definitive agreement that the parties expect to be executed prior to allowing trading of the Commodity-Based Trust Shares.

The Spot Crypto SSA is expected to be a bilateral surveillance-sharing agreement between the Exchange and Coinbase that is intended to supplement the Exchange's market surveillance program. The Spot Crypto SSA is expected to have the hallmarks of a surveillance-sharing agreement between two members of the ISG, which would give the Exchange supplemental access to data regarding spot ether trades on Coinbase where the Exchange determines it is necessary as part of its surveillance program for the Commodity-Based Trust Shares. This means that the Exchange expects to receive market data for orders and trades from Coinbase, which it will utilize in surveillance of the trading of Commodity-Based Trust Shares. In addition, the Exchange can request further information from Coinbase related to spot ether trading activity on the Coinbase exchange platform, if the Exchange determines that such information would be necessary to detect and investigate potential manipulation in the trading of the Commodity-Based Trust Shares.

(ii) Designed To Protect Investors and the Public Interest

The Exchange believes that the proposal is designed to protect investors and the public interest. Over the past several years, U.S. investor exposure to ether through OTC Ether Funds is greater than $5 billion. With that growth, so too has grown the quantifiable investor protection issues to U.S. investors through premium/discount volatility and management fees for OTC Ether Funds. The Exchange believes that, as described above, the concerns related to the prevention of fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices have been sufficiently addressed to be consistent with the Act and, to the extent that the Commission disagrees with that assertion, such concerns are now at the very least outweighed by investor protection concerns. As such, the Exchange believes that approving this proposal (and comparable proposals) provides the Commission with the opportunity to allow U.S. investors with access to ether in a regulated and transparent exchange-traded vehicle that would act to limit risk to U.S. investors by: (i) reducing premium and discount volatility; (ii) reducing management fees through meaningful competition; (iii) reducing risks and costs associated with investing in ether Futures ETFs and operating companies that are imperfect proxies for ether exposure; and (iv) providing an alternative to custodying spot ether.

Commodity-Based Trust Shares—Rule 14.11(e)(4)

The Exchange believes that the proposed rule change is designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices in that the Shares will be listed on the Exchange pursuant to the initial and continued listing criteria in Exchange Rule 14.11(e)(4). The Exchange believes that its surveillance procedures are adequate to properly monitor the trading of the Shares on the Exchange during all trading sessions and to deter and detect violations of Exchange rules and the applicable federal securities laws. Trading of the Shares through the Exchange will be subject to the Exchange's surveillance procedures for derivative products, including Commodity-Based Trust Shares. The issuer has represented to the Exchange that it will advise the Exchange of any failure by the Trust or the Shares to comply with the continued listing requirements, and, pursuant to its obligations under Section 19(g)(1) of the Exchange Act, the Exchange will surveil for compliance with the continued listing requirements. If the Trust or the Shares are not in compliance with the applicable listing requirements, the Exchange will commence delisting procedures under Exchange Rule 14.12. The Exchange may obtain information regarding trading in the Shares and listed ether derivatives via the ISG, from other exchanges who are members or affiliates of the ISG, or with which the Exchange has entered into a comprehensive surveillance sharing agreement.

Availability of Information

The Exchange also believes that the proposal promotes market transparency in that a large amount of information is currently available about ether and will be available regarding the Trust and the Shares. In addition to the price transparency of the Index, the Trust will provide information regarding the Trust's ether holdings as well as additional data regarding the Trust. The Trust will provide an IIV per Share updated every 15 seconds, as calculated by the Exchange or a third-party financial data provider during the Exchange's Regular Trading Hours (9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. E.T.). The IIV will be calculated by using the prior day's closing NAV per Share as a base and updating that value during Regular Trading Hours to reflect changes in the value of the Trust's ether holdings during the trading day.

The IIV disseminated during Regular Trading Hours should not be viewed as an actual real-time update of the NAV, which will be calculated only once at the end of each trading day. The IIV will be widely disseminated on a per Share basis every 15 seconds during the Exchange's Regular Trading Hours by one or more major market data vendors. In addition, the IIV will be available through on-line information services.

The website for the Trust, which will be publicly accessible at no charge, will contain the following information: (a) the current NAV per Share daily and the prior business day's NAV and the reported closing price; (b) the BZX Official Closing Price in relation to the NAV as of the time the NAV is calculated and a calculation of the premium or discount of such price against such NAV; (c) data in chart form displaying the frequency distribution of discounts and premiums of the Official Closing Price against the NAV, within appropriate ranges for each of the four previous calendar quarters (or for the life of the Trust, if shorter); (d) the prospectus; and (e) other applicable quantitative information. The Trust will also disseminate the Trust's holdings on a daily basis on the Trust's website. The price of ether will be made available by one or more major market data vendors, updated at least every 15 seconds during Regular Trading Hours. Information about the Index, including key elements of how the Index is calculated, will be publicly available at

The NAV for the Trust will be calculated by the Administrator once a day and will be disseminated daily to all market participants at the same time. Quotation and last-sale information regarding the Shares will be disseminated through the facilities of the CTA.

Quotation and last sale information for ether is widely disseminated through a variety of major market data vendors, including Bloomberg and Reuters, as well as the Index. Information relating to trading, including price and volume information, in ether is available from major market data vendors and from the exchanges on which ether are traded. Depth of book information is also available from ether exchanges. The normal trading hours for ether exchanges are 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.

In sum, the Exchange believes that this proposal is consistent with the requirements of Section 6(b)(5) of the Act, that this filing sufficiently demonstrates that the CME Ether Futures market represents a regulated market of significant size, and that on the whole the manipulation concerns previously articulated by the Commission are sufficiently mitigated to the point that they are outweighed by investor protection issues that would be resolved by approving this proposal.

The Exchange believes that the proposal is, in particular, designed to protect investors and the public interest. The investor protection issues for U.S. investors has grown significantly over the last several years, through roll costs for ether Futures ETFs and premium/discount volatility and management fees for OTC Ether Funds. As discussed throughout, this growth investor protection concerns need to be re-evaluated and rebalanced with the prevention of fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices concerns that previous disapproval orders have relied upon. Finally, the Exchange notes that in addition to all of the arguments herein which it believes sufficiently establish the CME Ether Futures market as a regulated market of significant size, it is logically inconsistent to find that the CME Ether Futures market is a significant market as it relates to the CME Ether Futures market, but not a significant market as it relates to the ether spot market for the numerous reasons laid out above.

For the above reasons, the Exchange believes that the proposed rule change is consistent with the requirements of Section 6(b)(5) of the Act.

B. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement on Burden on Competition

The Exchange does not believe that the proposed rule change will impose any burden on competition that is not necessary or appropriate in furtherance of the purpose of the Act. The Exchange notes that the proposed rule change, rather will facilitate the listing and trading of an additional exchange-traded product that will enhance competition among both market participants and listing venues, to the benefit of investors and the marketplace.

C. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement on Comments on the Proposed Rule Change Received From Members, Participants, or Others

The Exchange has neither solicited nor received written comments on the proposed rule change.

III. Date of Effectiveness of the Proposed Rule Change and Timing for Commission Action

Within 45 days of the date of publication of this notice in the Federal Register or within such longer period up to 90 days (i) as the Commission may designate if it finds such longer period to be appropriate and publishes its reasons for so finding or (ii) as to which the Exchange consents, the Commission will:

A. by order approve or disapprove such proposed rule change, or

B. institute proceedings to determine whether the proposed rule change should be disapproved.

IV. Solicitation of Comments

Interested persons are invited to submit written data, views and arguments concerning the foregoing, including whether the proposed rule change is consistent with the Act. Comments may be submitted by any of the following methods:

Electronic Comments

• Use the Commission's internet comment form ( https://www.sec.gov/​rules/​sro.shtml); or

• Send an email to [e-mail]. Please include file number SR–CboeBZX–2023–070 on the subject line.

Paper Comments

• Send paper comments in triplicate to Secretary, Securities and Exchange Commission, 100 F Street NE, Washington, DC 20549–1090.

All submissions should refer to file number SR–CboeBZX–2023–070. This file number should be included on the subject line if email is used. To help the Commission process and review your comments more efficiently, please use only one method. The Commission will post all comments on the Commission's internet website ( https://www.sec.gov/​rules/​sro.shtml). Copies of the submission, all subsequent amendments, all written statements with respect to the proposed rule change that are filed with the Commission, and all written communications relating to the proposed rule change between the Commission and any person, other than those that may be withheld from the public in accordance with the provisions of 5 U.S.C. 552, will be available for website viewing and printing in the Commission's Public Reference Room, 100 F Street NE, Washington, DC 20549, on official business days between the hours of 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Copies of the filing also will be available for inspection and copying at the principal office of the Exchange. Do not include personal identifiable information in submissions; you should submit only information that you wish to make available publicly. We may redact in part or withhold entirely from publication submitted material that is obscene or subject to copyright protection. All submissions should refer to file number SR-CboeBZX–2023–070 and should be submitted on or before October 18, 2023.

For the Commission, by the Division of Trading and Markets, pursuant to delegated authority.^[54]

Sherry R. Haywood,

Assistant Secretary.

Footnotes

1.  15 U.S.C. 78s(b)(1).

2.  17 CFR 240.19b–4.

3.  The Trust was formed as a Delaware statutory trust on September 5, 2023 and is operated as a grantor trust for U.S. federal tax purposes. The Trust has no fixed termination date.

4.  On September 6, 2023 the Trust filed with the Commission an initial registration statement (the “Registration Statement”) on Form S–1 under the Securities Act of 1933 (15 U.S.C. 77a). The description of the operation of the Trust herein is based, in part, on the Registration Statement. The Registration Statement is not yet effective and the Shares will not trade on the Exchange until such time that the Registration Statement is effective.

5.  The Commission approved BZX Rule 14.11(e)(4) in Securities Exchange Act Release No. 65225 (August 30, 2011), 76 FR 55148 (September 6, 2011) (SR–BATS–2011–018).

6.  All statements and representations made in this filing regarding (a) the description of the portfolio, (b) limitations on portfolio holdings or reference assets, or (c) the applicability of Exchange rules and surveillance procedures shall constitute continued listing requirements for listing the Shares on the Exchange.

7.  15 U.S.C. 80a–1.

8.  15 U.S.C. 80a–1.

9.  According to the Registration Statement, the Trust's cash will be held at The Bank of New York Mellon pursuant to a cash custody agreement.

10.  The premium and discount for OTC ether Funds is known to move rapidly. For example, over the period of 12/21/20 to 1/21/21, the premium for the largest OTC Ether Fund went from 238.63% to 5.1%. While the price of ether appreciated significantly during this period and NAV per share increased by 101.40%, the price per share decreased by 37.49%. This means that investors are buying shares of a fund that experiences significant volatility in its premium and discount outside of the fluctuations in price of the underlying asset. Even operating within the normal premium and discount range, it's possible for an investor to buy shares of an OTC ether Fund only to have those shares quickly lose 10% or more in dollar value excluding any movement of the price of ether. That is to say—the price of ether could have stayed exactly the same from market close on one day to market open the next, yet the value of the shares held by the investor decreased only because of the fluctuation of the premium. As more investment vehicles, including mutual funds and ETFs, seek to gain exposure to ether, the easiest option for a buy and hold strategy for such vehicles is often an OTC ether Fund, meaning that even investors that do not directly buy OTC ether Funds can be disadvantaged by extreme premiums (or discounts) and premium volatility.

11.  The Exchange notes that the list of countries above is not exhaustive and that securities regulators in a number of additional countries have either approved or otherwise allowed the listing and trading of Spot Ether ETPs.

12.   See FTX Trading Ltd., et al., Case No. 22–11068.

13.   See Celsius Network LLC, et al., Case No. 22–10964.

14.   See BlockFi Inc., Case No. 22–19361.

15.   See Voyager Digital Holdings, Inc., et al., Case No. 22–10943.

16.   See Securities Exchange Act Release No. 83723 (July 26, 2018), 83 FR 37579 (August 1, 2018). This proposal was subsequently disapproved by the Commission. See Securities Exchange Act Release No. 83723 (July 26, 2018), 83 FR 37579 (August 1, 2018) (the “Winklevoss Order”). Prior orders from the Commission have pointed out that in every prior approval order for Commodity-Based Trust Shares, there has been a derivatives market that represents the regulated market of significant size, generally a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the “CFTC”) regulated futures market. Further to this point, the Commission's prior orders have noted that the spot commodities and currency markets for which it has previously approved spot ETPs are generally unregulated and that the Commission relied on the underlying futures market as the regulated market of significant size that formed the basis for approving the series of Currency and Commodity-Based Trust Shares, including gold, silver, platinum, palladium, copper, and other commodities and currencies. The Commission specifically noted in the Winklevoss Order that the approval order issued related to the first spot gold ETP “was based on an assumption that the currency market and the spot gold market were largely unregulated.” See Winklevoss Order at 37592. As such, the regulated market of significant size test does not require that the spot bitcoin market be regulated in order for the Commission to approve this proposal, and precedent makes clear that an underlying market for a spot commodity or currency being a regulated market would actually be an exception to the norm. These largely unregulated currency and commodity markets do not provide the same protections as the markets that are subject to the Commission's oversight, but the Commission has consistently looked to surveillance sharing agreements with the underlying futures market in order to determine whether such products were consistent with the Act.

17.   See Exchange Act Release No. 94620 (April 6, 2022), 87 FR 21676 (April 12, 2022) and 94853 (May 5, 2022) (collectively, the “Bitcoin Futures Approvals”).

18.  Grayscale Investments, LLC v. Securities and Exchange Commission, et al., Case No. 22–1142 (the “Grayscale Order”).

19.   Id.

20.  As defined in Rule 11.23(a)(3), the term “BZX Official Closing Price” shall mean the price disseminated to the consolidated tape as the market center closing trade.

21.  For purposes of Rule 14.11(e)(4), the term commodity takes on the definition of the term as provided in the Commodity Exchange Act. The CFTC has stated that: “Certain digital assets, including BTC, ETH, LTC, and at least two fiat-backed stablecoins, tether (“USDT”) and the Binance USD (“BUSD”), as well as other virtual currencies as alleged herein, are “commodities,” as defined under Section 1a(9) of the [Commodities Exchange] Act, 7 U.S.C. 1a(9).” SeeCommodity Futures Trading Commission v. Changpeng Zhao, Binance Holdings Limited, Binance Holdings (IE) Limited, Binance (Services) Holdings Limited, and Samuel Lim, March 27, 2023 at 9.

22.  For a list of the current members and affiliate members of ISG, see www.isgportal.com.

23.  Regular Trading Hours is the time between 9:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

24.  Unless otherwise noted, all data and analysis presented in this section and referenced elsewhere in the filing has been provided by the Sponsor.

25.  The CME CF Ether-Dollar Reference Rate is based on a publicly available calculation methodology based on pricing sourced from several crypto exchanges and trading platforms, including Bitstamp, Coinbase, Gemini, itBit, Kraken, and LMAX Digital.

26.  Source: CME, 7/31/23

27.   See Exchange Rule 14.11(f).

28.  Commodity-Based Trust Shares, as described in Exchange Rule 14.11(e)(4), are a type of Trust Issued Receipt.

29.  Much like bitcoin, the Exchange believes that ether is resistant to price manipulation and that “other means to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices” exist to justify dispensing with the requisite surveillance sharing agreement. The geographically diverse and continuous nature of ether trading render it difficult and prohibitively costly to manipulate the price of ETH. The fragmentation across ether platforms, the relatively slow speed of transactions, and the capital necessary to maintain a significant presence on each trading platform make manipulation of ether prices through continuous trading activity challenging. To the extent that there are ether exchanges engaged in or allowing wash trading or other activity intended to manipulate the price of ether on other markets, such pricing does not normally impact prices on other exchange because participants will generally ignore markets with quotes that they deem non-executable. Moreover, the linkage between the ether markets and the presence of arbitrageurs in those markets means that the manipulation of the price of ether price on any single venue would require manipulation of the global ether price in order to be effective. Arbitrageurs must have funds distributed across multiple trading platforms in order to take advantage of temporary price dislocations, thereby making it unlikely that there will be strong concentration of funds on any particular ether exchange or OTC platform. As a result, the potential for manipulation on a trading platform would require overcoming the liquidity supply of such arbitrageurs who are effectively eliminating any cross-market pricing differences.

30.  As previously articulated by the Commission, “The standard requires such surveillance-sharing agreements since “they provide a necessary deterrent to manipulation because they facilitate the availability of information needed to fully investigate a manipulation if it were to occur.” The Commission has emphasized that it is essential for an exchange listing a derivative securities product to enter into a surveillance-sharing agreement with markets trading underlying securities for the listing exchange to have the ability to obtain information necessary to detect, investigate, and deter fraud and market manipulation, as well as violations of exchange rules and applicable federal securities laws and rules. The hallmarks of a surveillance-sharing agreement are that the agreement provides for the sharing of information about market trading activity, clearing activity, and customer identity; that the parties to the agreement have reasonable ability to obtain access to and produce requested information; and that no existing rules, laws, or practices would impede one party to the agreement from obtaining this information from, or producing it to, the other party.” The Commission has historically held that joint membership in the ISG constitutes such a surveillance sharing agreement. See Wilshire Phoenix Disapproval.

31.   See Wilshire Phoenix Disapproval.

32.   See Winklevoss Order at 37580. The Commission has also specifically noted that it “is not applying a `cannot be manipulated' standard; instead, the Commission is examining whether the proposal meets the requirements of the Exchange Act and, pursuant to its Rules of Practice, places the burden on the listing exchange to demonstrate the validity of its contentions and to establish that the requirements of the Exchange Act have been met.” Id. at 37582.

33.  According to reports, the Commission is poised to allow the launch of ETFs registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (the “1940 Act”), that provide exposure to ether primarily through CME Ether Futures (“ETH Futures ETFs”) as early as October 2023. Allowing such products to list and trade is a productive first step in providing U.S. investors and traders with transparent, exchange-listed tools for expressing a view on ETH. https://www.bloomberg.com/​news/​articles/​2023-08-17/​sec-said-to-be-poised-to-allow-us-debut-of-ether-futures-etfs-eth#xj4y7vzkg.

34.   See Exchange Act Release No. 94620 (April 6, 2022), 87 FR 21676 (April 12, 2022) (the “Teucrium Approval”) and 94853 (May 5, 2022) (collectively, with the Teucrium Approval, the “Bitcoin Futures Approvals”).

35.   See Teurcrium Approval at 21679.

36.  This logic is reflected by the court in the Grayscale Order at 17–18. Specifically, the court found that “Because Grayscale owns no futures contracts, trading in Grayscale can affect the futures market only through the spot market . . . But Grayscale holds just 3.4 percent of outstanding bitcoin, and the Commission did not suggest Grayscale can dominate the price of bitcoin.”

37.  Source: TokenTerminal.

38.  According to a report from The Block, Coinbase represented 45%% of USD denominated exchange trading volume in August 2023. https://www.theblock.co/​data/​crypto-markets/​spot/​usd-support-exchange-volume-market-share.

39.  For additional information regarding ISG and the hallmarks of surveillance-sharing between ISG members, see https://isgportal.org/​overview.

40.  The Exchange also notes that it already has in place ISG-like surveillance sharing agreement with Cboe Digital Exchange, LLC and Cboe Clear Digital, LLC.

41.  15 U.S.C. 78f.

42.  15 U.S.C. 78f(b)(5).

43.   See Exchange Rule 14.11(f).

44.  Commodity-Based Trust Shares, as described in Exchange Rule 14.11(e)(4), are a type of Trust Issued Receipt.

45.  Much like bitcoin, the Exchange believes that ether is resistant to price manipulation and that “other means to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices” exist to justify dispensing with the requisite surveillance sharing agreement. The geographically diverse and continuous nature of ether trading render it difficult and prohibitively costly to manipulate the price of ETH. The fragmentation across ether platforms, the relatively slow speed of transactions, and the capital necessary to maintain a significant presence on each trading platform make manipulation of ether prices through continuous trading activity challenging. To the extent that there are ether exchanges engaged in or allowing wash trading or other activity intended to manipulate the price of ether on other markets, such pricing does not normally impact prices on other exchange because participants will generally ignore markets with quotes that they deem non-executable. Moreover, the linkage between the ether markets and the presence of arbitrageurs in those markets means that the manipulation of the price of ether price on any single venue would require manipulation of the global ether price in order to be effective. Arbitrageurs must have funds distributed across multiple trading platforms in order to take advantage of temporary price dislocations, thereby making it unlikely that there will be strong concentration of funds on any particular ether exchange or OTC platform. As a result, the potential for manipulation on a trading platform would require overcoming the liquidity supply of such arbitrageurs who are effectively eliminating any cross-market pricing differences.

46.  As previously articulated by the Commission, “The standard requires such surveillance-sharing agreements since “they provide a necessary deterrent to manipulation because they facilitate the availability of information needed to fully investigate a manipulation if it were to occur.” The Commission has emphasized that it is essential for an exchange listing a derivative securities product to enter into a surveillance- sharing agreement with markets trading underlying securities for the listing exchange to have the ability to obtain information necessary to detect, investigate, and deter fraud and market manipulation, as well as violations of exchange rules and applicable federal securities laws and rules. The hallmarks of a surveillance-sharing agreement are that the agreement provides for the sharing of information about market trading activity, clearing activity, and customer identity; that the parties to the agreement have reasonable ability to obtain access to and produce requested information; and that no existing rules, laws, or practices would impede one party to the agreement from obtaining this information from, or producing it to, the other party.” The Commission has historically held that joint membership in the ISG constitutes such a surveillance sharing agreement. See Wilshire Phoenix Disapproval.

47.   See Wilshire Phoenix Disapproval.

48.   See Winklevoss Order at 37580. The Commission has also specifically noted that it “is not applying a `cannot be manipulated' standard; instead, the Commission is examining whether the proposal meets the requirements of the Exchange Act and, pursuant to its Rules of Practice, places the burden on the listing exchange to demonstrate the validity of its contentions and to establish that the requirements of the Exchange Act have been met.” Id. at 37582.

49.  According to reports, the Commission is poised to allow the launch of ETFs registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (the “1940 Act”), that provide exposure to ether primarily through CME Ether Futures (“ETH Futures ETFs”) as early as October 2023. Allowing such products to list and trade is a productive first step in providing U.S. investors and traders with transparent, exchange-listed tools for expressing a view on ETH. https://www.bloomberg.com/​news/​articles/​2023-08-17/​sec-said-to-be-poised-to-allow-us-debut-of-ether-futures-etfs-eth#xj4y7vzkg.

50.   See Exchange Act Release No. 94620 (April 6, 2022), 87 FR 21676 (April 12, 2022) (the “Teucrium Approval”) and 94853 (May 5, 2022) (collectively, with the Teucrium Approval, the “Bitcoin Futures Approvals”).

51.   See Teucrium Approval at 21679.

52.  This logic is reflected by the court in the Grayscale Order at 17–18. Specifically, the court found that “Because Grayscale owns no futures contracts, trading in Grayscale can affect the futures market only through the spot market. . . But Grayscale holds just 3.4 percent of outstanding bitcoin, and the Commission did not suggest Grayscale can dominate the price of bitcoin.”

53.  Source: TokenTerminal.

54.  17 CFR 200.30–3(a)(12).