Staking for crypto exchange-traded funds has been a feature long sought by traditional financial institutions and asset managers.
The Nasdaq stock exchange filed an application with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday on behalf of BlackRock to add staking to the asset manager’s iShares Ether (ETH) exchange-traded fund (ETF).
If the application is approved, the fund would give investors exposure to staking rewards accrued from using the underlying Ether as collateral security for Ethereum’s proof-of-stake consensus algorithm.
In May, the SEC released guidance classifying staking rewards earned from validation services on proof-of-stake blockchain networks as earned income rather than securities transactions subject to capital gains tax.