With the US elections approaching and presidential candidate Donald Trump pursuing a crypto-friendly policy, the Biden government has also taken action. When the “hostile” attitude towards cryptocurrencies was put aside, the SEC opened the doors for Ether spot ETFs. However, Ether spot ETFs, especially staking activities, continue to be seriously debated.

“There is no point without staking”

Two ETF issuers, CoinShares and Valkyrie, will not apply for an Ether spot ETF, according to Eleanor Terrett, a Fox Business reporter from the US media. Terrett stated that the reason for this is that the SEC does not favor the staking feature in the fund. It is claimed that both companies think that Ether spot ETFs would be meaningless without the staking feature.

As it is known, although the SEC does not make a clear comment on whether Ether is a security or not, it seriously opposes staking activities. The agency is currently in a staking-focused lawsuit with the Coinbase exchange. Last year, the SEC sued Coinbase over several altcoin trading services and staking activities. The agency believes that such services fall under the category of unregistered securities sales.

Also last year, the Kraken exchange reached an agreement with the SEC and ended its staking activities.

Companies applying for an Ether spot ETF to the SEC have recently started to remove the staking feature from their products. Finally, yesterday, Fidelity removed staking from its fund features.