66076 Federal Register / Vol. 88, No. 185 / Tuesday, September 26, 2023 / Notices 

45The Exchange calculated for each of SPXW 

options (with Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 

expirations) and SPY Weekly options (with 

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday expirations) the 

daily time-weighted bid-ask spread on the Exchange 

during its regular trading hours session, adjusted for 

the difference in size between SPXW options and 

SPY options (SPXW options are approximately ten 

times the value of SPY options). 

46The Exchange calculated the volume-weighted 

average daily effective spread for simple trades for 

each of SPXW options (with Monday, Wednesday, 

and Friday expirations) and SPY Weekly options 

(with Monday, Wednesday, and Friday expirations) 

as twice the amount of the absolute value of the 

difference between an order execution price and the 

midpoint of the national best bid and offer at the 

time of execution, adjusted for the difference in size 

between SPXW options and SPY options. 

47For purposes of comparison, the Exchange 

paired SPXW options and SPY options with the 

same moneyness and same days to expiration. 

48See Notice, 88 FR at 26364. 

49See id. 

50See Notice, 88 FR at 26364. 

51See id. at 26365. 

52 15 U.S.C. 78f(b)(5). 

53 15 U.S.C. 78s(b)(2). 

54 17 CFR 200.30–3(a)(12). 

1 15 U.S.C. 78s(b)(1). 

2 17 CFR 240.19b–4. 

3The Trust was formed as a Delaware statutory 

trust on June 22, 2021 and is operated as a grantor 

trust for U.S. federal tax purposes. The Trust has 

no fixed termination date. 

4On May 7, 2021 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. 

5The 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). 

values of key market quality indicators 

(specifically, the bid-ask spread 45 and 

effective spread 46) in p.m.-settled SPX 

weekly (‘‘SPXW’’) options both before 

and after the introduction of Tuesday 

expirations and Thursday expirations 

for SPXW options on April 18 and May 

11, 2022, respectively.47 The Exchange 

concludes from this analysis that the 

introduction of SPX options with 

Tuesday and Thursday options had no 

significant impact on the market quality 

of SPXW options with Monday, 

Wednesday, and Friday expirations.48

For a majority of the series analyzed, the 

Exchange observed no statistically 

significant difference in bid-ask spread 

or effective spread.49 The Exchange 

states that analyzing whether the 

introduction of new SPXW p.m.-settled 

expirations (i.e., SPXW options with 

Tuesday and Thursday expirations) 

impacted the market quality of thenexisting SPXW p.m.-settled expirations 

(i.e., SPXW options with Monday, 

Wednesday, and Friday expirations) 

provides a reasonable substitute to 

evaluate whether the introduction of 

p.m.-settled index options impacted 

market quality when the Program 

began.50 Therefore, the Exchange 

believes the results of its analysis permit 

the Exchange to extrapolate that it is 

unlikely the introduction of p.m.-settled 

XSP or p.m.-settled MRUT options 

significantly impacted the market 

quality of a.m.-settled options, such as 

a.m.-settled SPX or Russell 2000 

options, respectively, when the Program 

began.51

The Commission believes that the 

evidence contained in the Exchange’s 

filing, the Exchange’s pilot data and 

reports, and the Pilot Memo analysis 

demonstrate that the Program has 

benefitted investors and other market 

participants by providing more flexible 

trading and hedging opportunities while 

also having no disruptive impact on the 

market. The market for p.m.-settled 

options has grown in size over the 

course of the Program, and analysis of 

the pilot data did not identify any 

significant economic impact on the 

underlying component securities 

surrounding the close as a result of 

expiring p.m.-settled options nor did it 

indicate a deterioration in market 

quality (as measured by bid-ask and 

effective spreads) for an existing 

product when a new p.m.-settled 

expiration was introduced. Further, 

significant changes in closing 

procedures in the decades since index 

options moved to a.m. settlement may 

also serve to mitigate the potential 

impact of p.m.-settled index options on 

the underlying cash markets. 

Accordingly, the Commission finds 

that the proposed rule change is 

consistent with section 6(b)(5) of the 

Act 52 and the rules and regulations 

thereunder applicable to a national 

securities exchange. 

V. Conclusion 

It is therefore ordered, pursuant to 

section 19(b)(2) of the Act,53 that the 

proposed rule change (SR–CBOE–2023– 

019) be, and hereby is, approved. 

For the Commission, by the Division of 

Trading and Markets, pursuant to delegated 

authority.54

Sherry R. Haywood, 

Assistant Secretary. 

[FR Doc. 2023–20811 Filed 9–25–23; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 8011–01–P 

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE 

COMMISSION 

[Release No. 34–98457; File No. SR– 

CboeBZX–2023–069] 

Self-Regulatory Organizations; Cboe 

BZX Exchange, Inc.; Notice of Filing of 

a Proposed Rule Change To List and 

Trade Shares of the VanEck Ethereum 

ETF Under BZX Rule 14.11(e)(4), 

Commodity-Based Trust Shares 

September 20, 2023. 

Pursuant to section 19(b)(1) of the 

Securities Exchange Act of 1934 

(‘‘Act’’),1 and Rule 19b–4 thereunder,2

notice is hereby given that on 

September 6, 2023, Cboe BZX Exchange, 

Inc. (‘‘Exchange’’ or ‘‘BZX’’) filed with 

the Securities and Exchange 

Commission (‘‘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 VanEck 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 VanEck 

Ethereum Trust 4 under BZX Rule 

14.11(e)(4),5 which governs the listing 


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6All 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. 

8The premium and discount for OTC ETH 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 ETH 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 holding shares of a 

fund with roughly $4.8 billion in assets under 

management 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 ETH 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 ETH 

Fund, meaning that even investors that do not 

directly buy OTC ETH Funds can be disadvantaged 

by extreme premiums (or discounts) and premium 

volatility. 

9The 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 ETH ETPs. 

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. 

VanEck Ethereum Trust 

VanEck Digital Assets, LLC is the 

sponsor of the Trust (the ‘‘Sponsor’’). A 

third-party regulated custodian (the 

‘‘Custodian’’) will be responsible for 

custody of the Trust’s Ether (‘‘ETH’’). 

Delaware Trust Company is the trustee 

(‘‘Trustee’’). The State Street Bank and 

Trust Company will be the 

administrator (‘‘Administrator’’) and 

transfer agent (‘‘Transfer Agent’’). Van 

Eck Securities Corporation will be the 

marketing agent (‘‘Marketing Agent’’) in 

connection with the creation and 

redemption of ‘‘Baskets’’ of Shares. The 

Custodian will be responsible for 

custody of the Trust’s ETH. 

According to the Registration 

Statement, each Share will represent a 

fractional undivided beneficial interest 

in the Trust’s net assets. The Trust’s 

assets will consist of ETH 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. 

When the Trust sells or redeems its 

Shares, it will do so in blocks of 50,000 

Shares (a ‘‘Creation Basket’’) at the 

Trust’s NAV. Authorized participants 

will deliver, or facilitate the delivery of, 

ETH to the Trust’s account with the 

Custodian in exchange for Shares when 

they purchase Shares, and the Trust, 

through the Custodian, will deliver ETH 

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. 

Background 

Ethereum is free software that is 

hosted on computers distributed 

throughout the globe. It employs an 

array of logic, called a protocol, to create 

a unified understanding of ownership, 

commercial activity, and business logic. 

This allows users to engage in 

commerce without the need to trust any 

of its participants or counterparties. 

Ethereum code creates verifiable and 

unambiguous rules that assign clear, 

strong property rights to create a 

platform for unrestrained business 

formation and free exchange. It is 

widely understood that no single 

intermediary or entity operates or 

controls the Ethereum network (referred 

to as ‘‘decentralization’’), the transaction 

validation and recordkeeping 

infrastructure of which is collectively 

maintained by a disparate user base. 

The Ethereum network allows people to 

exchange tokens of value, or ETH, 

which are recorded on a distributed 

public recordkeeping system or ledger 

known as a blockchain (the ‘‘Ethereum 

Blockchain’’), and which can be used to 

pay for goods and services, including 

computational power on the Ethereum 

network, or converted to fiat currencies, 

such as the U.S. dollar, at rates 

determined on digital asset exchanges or 

in individual peer-to-peer transactions. 

Furthermore, by combining the 

recordkeeping system of the Ethereum 

Blockchain with a flexible scripting 

language that is programmable and can 

be used to implement sophisticated 

logic and execute a wide variety of 

instructions, the Ethereum network is 

intended to act as a foundational 

infrastructure layer on top of which 

users can build their own custom 

software programs, as an alternative to 

centralized web servers. In theory, 

anyone can build their own custom 

software programs on the Ethereum 

network. In this way, the Ethereum 

network represents a project to expand 

blockchain deployment beyond a 

limited-purpose, peer-to-peer private 

money system into a flexible, 

distributed alternative computing 

infrastructure that is available to all. On 

the Ethereum network, ETH is the unit 

of account that users pay for the 

computational resources consumed by 

running their programs. 

Heretofore, U.S. retail investors have 

lacked a U.S. regulated, U.S. exchangetraded vehicle to gain exposure to ETH. 

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 ETH Funds’’) with high 

management fees and potentially 

volatile premiums and discounts; 8

Meanwhile, investors in other countries, 

including Germany, Switzerland and 

France, are able to use more traditional 

exchange listed and traded products 

(including exchange-traded funds 

holding physical ETH) to gain exposure 

to ETH. 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.9

To this point, the lack of an ETP that 

holds spot ETH (a ‘‘Spot ETH ETP’’) 

exposes U.S. investor assets to 

significant risk because investors that 

would otherwise seek cryptoasset 

exposure through a Spot ETH ETP are 

forced to find alternative exposure 

through generally riskier means. For 

example, investors in OTC ETH Funds 

are not afforded the benefits and 

protections of regulated Spot ETH ETPs, 

resulting in retail investors suffering 

losses due to drastic movements in the 

premium/discount of OTC ETH Funds. 

An investor who purchased the largest 

OTC ETH Fund in January 2021 and 

held the position at the end of 2022 

would have suffered a 69% loss due to 

the premium/discount, even if the price 

of ETH did not change. Many retail 

investors likely suffered losses due to 

this premium/discount in OTC ETH 

Fund trading; all such losses could have 


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66078 Federal Register / Vol. 88, No. 185 / Tuesday, September 26, 2023 / Notices 

10See FTX Trading Ltd., et al., Case No. 22– 

11068. 

11See Celsius Network LLC, et al., Case No. 22– 

10964. 

12See BlockFi Inc., Case No. 22–19361. 

13See Voyager Digital Holdings, Inc., et al., Case 

No. 22–10943. 

14See 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 ether 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. 

15See 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’’). 

16The proposed spot bitcoin funds are nearly 

identical to the Trust but proposed to hold bitcoin 

instead of ETH (‘‘Spot Bitcoin ETPs’’). 

17 Grayscale Investments, LLC v. Securities and 

Exchange Commission, et al., Case No. 22–1142 (the 

‘‘Grayscale Order’’). 

18 Id. 

19The CryptoCompare Exchange Benchmark 

methodology utilizes a combination of qualitative 

and quantitative metrics to analyze a 

comprehensive data set across eight categories of 

evaluation legal/regulation, KYC/transaction risk, 

data provision, security, team/exchange, asset 

quality/diversity, market quality and negative 

events. The CryptoCompare Exchange Benchmark 

review report assigns a grade to each exchange 

which helps identify what it believes to be the 

lowest risk exchanges in the industry. Based on the 

CryptoCompare Exchange Benchmark, 

MarketVector Indexes initially selects the top five 

exchanges by rank for inclusion in the 

MarketVectorTM Ethereum Benchmark Rate. If an 

eligible exchange is downgraded by two or more 

notches in a semi-annual review and is no longer 

in the top five by rank, it is replaced by the highest 

ranked non-component exchange. Adjustments to 

exchange coverage are announced four business 

days prior to the first business day of each of June 

and December 23:00 CET. The MarketVectorTM

Ethereum Benchmark Rate is rebalanced at 16:00:00 

GMT/BST on the last business day of each of May 

and November. 

been avoided if a Spot ETH ETP had 

been available. Additionally, many U.S. 

investors that held their digital assets in 

accounts at FTX,10 Celsius Network 

LLC,11 BlockFi Inc.12 and Voyager 

Digital Holdings, Inc.13 have become 

unsecured creditors in the insolvencies 

of those entities. If a Spot ETH 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 wellunderstood structure—a Spot ETH ETP. 

To this point, approval of a Spot ETH 

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 ETH, 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.14 With this in mind, the CME 

Ether Futures (‘‘CME ETH 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’’),15

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 on 

the seemingly conflicting basis that the 

CME Bitcoin Futures market is not a 

regulated market of significant size.16 In 

the recently decided Grayscale 

Investments, LLC v Securities and 

Exchange Commission,17 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 and vacating the 

disapproval order.18

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 

ETH Futures market represents a 

regulated market of significant size as it 

relates both to the CME ETH Futures 

market and to the spot ETH market and 

that this proposal should be approved. 

Investment Objective 

According to the Registration 

Statement, the investment objective of 

the Trust is for the Shares to reflect the 

performance of the MarketVectorTM

Ethereum Benchmark Rate less the 

expenses of the Trust’s operations. In 

seeking to achieve its investment 

objective, the Trust will hold Ether 

(‘‘ETH’’) and will value its Shares daily 

based on the reported MarketVectorTM

Ethereum Benchmark Rate (the 

‘‘Benchmark’’), which is calculated 

based on prices contributed by 

exchanges that the Sponsor’s affiliate, 

MarketVector IndexesTM

(‘‘MarketVector’’), believes represent the 

top five Ethereum exchanges based on 

the industry leading CryptoCompare 

Exchange Benchmark review report. The 

Trust is not actively managed. 

The Benchmark 

As described in the Registration 

Statement, the Fund will use the 

Benchmark to calculate the Trust’s 

NAV. The Benchmark is designed to be 

a robust price for ETH in USD and there 

is no component other than ETH in the 

index. The underlying exchanges are 

sourced from the industry leading 

CryptoCompare Exchange Benchmark 

review report. CryptoCompare Exchange 

Benchmark was established in 2019 as 

a tool designed to bring clarity to the 

digital asset exchange sector by 

providing a framework for assessing risk 

and in turn bringing transparency and 

accountability to a complex and rapidly 

evolving market.19 The current 

exchange composition of the Benchmark 

is Bitstamp, Coinbase, Gemini, itBit, and 

Kraken. 

In calculating the MarketVectorTM

Ethereum Benchmark Rate, the 

methodology captures trade prices and 

sizes from exchanges and examines 

twenty consecutive three-minute 

periods leading up to 4:00 p.m. EST. It 

then calculates an equal-weighted 

average of the volume-weighted median 

price of these twenty three-minute 

periods, removing the highest and 

lowest contributed prices. Using twenty 


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20As 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. 

consecutive three-minute segments over 

a sixty-minute period means malicious 

actors would need to sustain efforts to 

manipulate the market over an extended 

period of time, or would need to 

replicate efforts multiple times across 

exchanges, potentially triggering review. 

This extended period also supports 

authorized participant activity by 

capturing volume over a longer time 

period, rather than forcing authorized 

participants to mark an individual close 

or auction. The use of a median price 

reduces the ability of outlier prices to 

impact the NAV, as it systematically 

excludes those prices from the NAV 

calculation. The use of a volumeweighted median (as opposed to a 

traditional median) serves as an 

additional protection against attempts to 

manipulate the NAV by executing a 

large number of low-dollar trades, 

because any manipulation attempt 

would have to involve a majority of 

global spot ETH volume in a threeminute window to have any influence 

on the NAV. As discussed in the 

Registration Statement, removing the 

highest and lowest prices further 

protects against attempts to manipulate 

the NAV, requiring bad actors to act on 

multiple exchanges at once to have any 

ability to influence the price. 

Availability of Information 

In addition to the price transparency 

of the Benchmark, the Trust will 

provide information regarding the 

Trust’s ETH 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 ETH 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 ETH 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 Benchmark, 

including key elements of how the 

Benchmark is calculated, will be 

publicly available at https://

www.marketvector.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 ETH is widely disseminated through 

a variety of major market data vendors, 

including Bloomberg and Reuters, as 

well as the Benchmark. Information 

relating to trading, including price and 

volume information, in ETH is available 

from major market data vendors and 

from the exchanges on which ETH are 

traded. Depth of book information is 

also available from ETH exchanges. The 

normal trading hours for ETH exchanges 

are 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. 

The ETH Custodian 

The Custodian’s services (i) allow 

ETH to be deposited from a public 

blockchain address to the Trust’s ETH 

account and (ii) allow ETH to be 

withdrawn from the ETH account to a 

public blockchain address as instructed 

by the Trust. The Custody Agreement 

requires the Custodian to hold the 

Trust’s ETH in cold storage, unless 

required to facilitate withdrawals as a 

temporary measure. The Custodian will 

use segregated cold storage ETH 

addresses for the Trust which are 

separate from the ETH addresses that 

the Custodian uses for its other 

customers and which are directly 

verifiable via the ETH blockchain. The 

Custodian will safeguard the private 

keys to the ETH associated with the 

Trust’s ETH account. The Custodian 

will at all times record and identify in 

its books and records that such ETH 

constitutes the property of the Trust. 

The Custodian will not withdraw the 

Trust’s ETH from the Trust’s account 

with the Custodian, or loan, 

hypothecate, pledge or otherwise 

encumber the Trust’s ETH, without the 

Trust’s instruction. If the custody 

agreement terminates, the Sponsor may 

appoint another custodian and the Trust 

may enter into a custodian agreement 

with such custodian. 

Net Asset Value 

NAV means the total assets of the 

Trust including, but not limited to, all 

ETH 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 ETH 

held by the Trust based on the price set 

by the MarketVectorTM Ethereum 

Benchmark Rate 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 

ETH required is an amount of ETH 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 ETH 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 ETH held by the 

Trust as of the opening of business on 


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21For 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 fiatbacked 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).’’ See Commodity 

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. 

22For a list of the current members and affiliate 

members of ISG, see www.isgportal.com. 

that business day, adjusted for the 

amount of ETH 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 50,000. 

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 CommodityBased 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 ETH 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 ETH 

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


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23Regular Trading Hours is the time between 9:30 

a.m. and 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time. 

24Unless otherwise noted, all data and analysis 

presented in this section and referenced elsewhere 

in the filing has been provided by the Sponsor. 

25The 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. 

26Source: CME, 7/31/23. 

27A large open interest holder in CME ETH 

Futures is an entity that holds at least 25 contracts, 

which is the equivalent of 1250 ether. At a price 

of approximately $1,867 per ether on 7/31/2023, 

more than 59 firms had outstanding positions of 

greater than $2.3 million in CME ETH Futures. 

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, noaction and interpretive relief granted by 

the Commission from any rules under 

the Act. 

CME ETH Futures 24

CME began offering trading in Ether 

Futures in February 2021. Each contract 

represents 50 ETH 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 ETH 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 The Sponsor’s 

research indicates daily correlation 

between the spot ETH and the CME ETH 

Futures is 0.998 from the period of 9/ 

1/22 through 9/1/23. 

The number of large open interest 

holders 27 and unique accounts trading 

CME ETH Futures have both increased, 

even in the face of heightened Ether 

price volatility. 

BILLING CODE 8011–01–P 


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28See Exchange Rule 14.11(f). 

29Commodity-Based Trust Shares, as described in 

Exchange Rule 14.11(e)(4), are a type of Trust 

Issued Receipt. 

30The Exchange believes that ETH 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 

ETH trading render it difficult and prohibitively 

costly to manipulate the price of ETH. The 

fragmentation across ETH platforms, the relatively 

slow speed of transactions, and the capital 

necessary to maintain a significant presence on 

each trading platform make manipulation of ETH 

prices through continuous trading activity 

challenging. To the extent that there are ETH 

exchanges engaged in or allowing wash trading or 

other activity intended to manipulate the price of 

ETH 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 ETH markets and the 

presence of arbitrageurs in those markets means 

that the manipulation of the price of ETH price on 

any single venue would require manipulation of the 

global ETH 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 ETH 

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. 

31As 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 surveillancesharing 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 Securities Exchange Act Release No. 88284 

(February 26, 2020), 85 FR 12595 (March 3, 2020) 

(SR–NYSEArca–2019–39) (the ‘‘Wilshire Phoenix 

Disapproval’’). 

32See Wilshire Phoenix Disapproval. 

BILLING CODE 8011–01–C 

Section 6(b)(5) and the Applicable 

Standards 

The Commission has approved 

numerous series of Trust Issued 

Receipts,28 including Commodity-Based 

Trust Shares,29 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; 30 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 ETH 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 31 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 ETH 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.32

The Commission has also recognized 

that the ‘‘regulated market of significant 


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33See 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. 

34According 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 ETH 

primarily through CME ETH 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-allowus-debut-of-ether-futures-etfs-eth#xj4y7vzkg. 

35See Teucrium Approval at 21679. 

36This 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.’’ 

37Source: TokenTerminal. 

38Source: VanEck research, CryptoCompare. 

39According 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/usdsupport-exchange-volume-market-share. 

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.33 34

(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 ETH 

Futures and spot bitcoin/CME Bitcoin 

Futures (.998 vs. .999, respectively), 

applying the same rationale that the 

Commission applied to a Bitcoin 

Futures ETF in the Bitcoin Futures 

Approvals 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 ETH Futures. CME 

ETH Futures pricing is based on pricing 

from spot ETH 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 ETH 

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 ETH 

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 ETH 

Futures. This view is also consistent 

with the Sponsor’s research. 

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 ETH Futures 

The Exchange and Sponsor also 

believe that trading in the Shares would 

not be the predominant force on prices 

in the CME ETH Futures market for a 

number of reasons. First, because the 

Trust would not hold CME ETH Futures 

contracts, the only way that it could be 

the predominant force on prices in that 

market is through the spot markets that 

CME ETH Futures contracts use for 

pricing.36 The Sponsor notes that ETH 

total 24-hour spot trading volume has 

averaged $9.4B over the year ending 

September 1, 2023,37 with 

approximately $950M occurring on 

venues whose trades are included in the 

sponsor’s benchmark.38 The Sponsor 

expects that the Trust would represent 

a very small percentage of this daily 

trading volume in the spot ETH 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 

ETH Futures market. Second, much like 

the CME Bitcoin Futures market, the 

CME ETH 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 

ETH and CME ETH 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 

ETH that represents a substantial 

portion of US-based and USD 

denominated ETH trading,39 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 


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40For additional information regarding ISG and 

the hallmarks of surveillance-sharing between ISG 

members, see https://isgportal.org/overview. 

41The Exchange also notes that it already has in 

place ISG-like surveillance sharing agreement with 

Cboe Digital Exchange, LLC and Cboe Clear Digital, 

LLC. 

42 15 U.S.C. 78f. 

43 15 U.S.C. 78f(b)(5). 

44The Exchange believes that ETH 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 

ETH trading render it difficult and prohibitively 

costly to manipulate the price of ETH. The 

fragmentation across ETH platforms, the relatively 

slow speed of transactions, and the capital 

necessary to maintain a significant presence on 

each trading platform make manipulation of ETH 

prices through continuous trading activity 

challenging. To the extent that there are ETH 

exchanges engaged in or allowing wash trading or 

other activity intended to manipulate the price of 

ETH 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 ETH markets and the 

presence of arbitrageurs in those markets means 

that the manipulation of the price of ETH price on 

any single venue would require manipulation of the 

global ETH 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 ETH 

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. 

45See Wilshire Phoenix Disapproval. 

46See 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. 

47According to reports, the Commission is poised 

to allow the launch of ETFs registered under the 

Continued 

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 ETH trades on 

Coinbase where the Exchange 

determines it is necessary as part of its 

surveillance program for the 

Commodity-Based Trust Shares.40 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 ETH 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.41

(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 

ETH through OTC ETH 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 ETH 

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 ETH in a 

regulated and transparent exchangetraded 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 ETH Futures ETFs and operating 

companies that are imperfect proxies for 

ETH exposure; and (iv) providing an 

alternative to custodying spot ETH. 

2. Statutory Basis 

The Exchange believes that the 

proposal is consistent with section 6(b) 

of the Act 42 in general and section 

6(b)(5) of the Act 43 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, including Commodity-Based 

Trust Shares, 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; 44 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 ETH 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 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 ETH 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.45

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.46 47


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66086 Federal Register / Vol. 88, No. 185 / Tuesday, September 26, 2023 / Notices 

Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (the 

‘‘1940 Act’’), that provide exposure to ETH 

primarily through CME ETH 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-allowus-debut-of-ether-futures-etfs-eth#xj4y7vzkg. 

48See Teucrium Approval at 21679. 

49This 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.’’ 

50Source: TokenTerminal. 

51Source: VanEck research, CryptoCompare. 

(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 ETH 

Futures and spot bitcoin/CME Bitcoin 

Futures (.998 vs. .999, respectively), 

applying the same rationale that the 

Commission applied to a Bitcoin 

Futures ETF in the Bitcoin Futures 

Approvals 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.48

The assumptions from this statement 

are also true for CME ETH Futures. CME 

ETH Futures pricing is based on pricing 

from spot ETH 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 ETH 

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 ETH 

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 ETH 

Futures. This view is also consistent 

with the Sponsor’s research. 

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 ETH Futures 

The Exchange and Sponsor also 

believe that trading in the Shares would 

not be the predominant force on prices 

in the CME ETH Futures market for a 

number of reasons. First, because the 

Trust would not hold CME ETH Futures 

contracts, the only way that it could be 

the predominant force on prices in that 

market is through the spot markets that 

CME ETH Futures contracts use for 

pricing.49 The Sponsor notes that ETH 

total 24-hour spot trading volume has 

averaged $9.4B over the year ending 

September 1, 2023,50 with 

approximately $950M occurring on 

venues whose trades are included in the 

sponsor’s benchmark.51 The Sponsor 

expects that the Trust would represent 

a very small percentage of this daily 

trading volume in the spot ETH 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 

ETH Futures market. Second, much like 

the CME Bitcoin Futures market, the 

CME ETH 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 

ETH and CME ETH 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 

ETH that represents a substantial 

portion of US-based and USD 

denominated ETH 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 ETH 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 ETH trading activity on 

the Coinbase exchange platform, if the 

Exchange determines that such 

information would be necessary to 


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Federal Register / Vol. 88, No. 185 / Tuesday, September 26, 2023 / Notices 66087 

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 

ETH through OTC ETH 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 ETH 

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 ETH in a 

regulated and transparent exchangetraded 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 ETH Futures ETFs and operating 

companies that are imperfect proxies for 

ETH exposure; and (iv) providing an 

alternative to custodying spot ETH. 

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 ETH 

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 ETH 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 ETH 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 ETH 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 ETH 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 ETH 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 ETH is available from 

major market data vendors and from the 

exchanges on which ETH are traded. 

Depth of book information is also 

available from ETH exchanges. The 

normal trading hours for ETH 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 ETH 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. 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. 


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66088 Federal Register / Vol. 88, No. 185 / Tuesday, September 26, 2023 / Notices 

52 17 CFR 200.30–3(a)(12). 

1 15 U.S.C. 78s(b)(1). 

2 17 CFR 240.19b–4. 

3See Securities Exchange Act Release No. 96980 

(February 24, 2023), 88 FR 13161 (‘‘Notice’’). 

4 15 U.S.C. 78s(b)(2). 

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 rule-comments@

sec.gov. Please include file number SR– 

CboeBZX–2023–069 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–2023–069. 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–2023–069 and should be 

submitted on or before October 17, 

2023. 

For the Commission, by the Division of 

Trading and Markets, pursuant to delegated 

authority.52

Sherry R. Haywood, 

Assistant Secretary. 

[FR Doc. 2023–20813 Filed 9–25–23; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 8011–01–P 

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE 

COMMISSION 

Sunshine Act Meetings 

TIME AND DATE: 1:00 p.m. on Thursday, 

September 28, 2023. 

PLACE: The meeting will be held via 

remote means and/or at the 

Commission’s headquarters, 100 F 

Street NE, Washington, DC 20549. 

STATUS: This meeting will be closed to 

the public. 

MATTERS TO BE CONSIDERED: 

Commissioners, Counsel to the 

Commissioners, the Secretary to the 

Commission, and recording secretaries 

will attend the closed meeting. Certain 

staff members who have an interest in 

the matters also may be present. 

In the event that the time, date, or 

location of this meeting changes, an 

announcement of the change, along with 

the new time, date, and/or place of the 

meeting will be posted on the 

Commission’s website at https://

www.sec.gov. 

The General Counsel of the 

Commission, or her designee, has 

certified that, in her opinion, one or 

more of the exemptions set forth in 5 

U.S.C. 552b(c)(3), (5), (6), (7), (8), 9(B) 

and (10) and 17 CFR 200.402(a)(3), 

(a)(5), (a)(6), (a)(7), (a)(8), (a)(9)(ii) and 

(a)(10), permit consideration of the 

scheduled matters at the closed meeting. 

The subject matter of the closed 

meeting will consist of the following 

topics: 

Institution and settlement of 

injunctive actions; 

Institution and settlement of 

administrative proceedings; 

Resolution of litigation claims; and 

Other matters relating to examinations 

and enforcement proceedings. 

At times, changes in Commission 

priorities require alterations in the 

scheduling of meeting agenda items that 

may consist of adjudicatory, 

examination, litigation, or regulatory 

matters. 

CONTACT PERSON FOR MORE INFORMATION: 

For further information; please contact 

Vanessa A. Countryman from the Office 

of the Secretary at (202) 551–5400. 

Authority: 5 U.S.C. 552b. 

Dated: September 21, 2023. 

Vanessa A. Countryman, 

Secretary. 

[FR Doc. 2023–20974 Filed 9–22–23; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 8011–01–P 

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE 

COMMISSION 

[Release No. 34–98451; File No. SR–Phlx– 

2023–07] 

Self-Regulatory Organizations; Nasdaq 

PHLX LLC; Order Granting Approval of 

a Proposed Rule Change, as Modified 

by Amendment No. 1, To Make 

Permanent Certain P.M.-Settled Pilots 

September 20, 2023. 

I. Introduction 

On February 23, 2023, Nasdaq PHLX 

LLC (‘‘Phlx’’ or ‘‘Exchange’’) filed with 

the Securities and Exchange 

Commission (‘‘Commission’’), pursuant 

to section 19(b)(1) of the Securities 

Exchange Act of 1934 (‘‘Act’’) 1 and Rule 

19b–4 thereunder,2 a proposed rule 

change to make permanent the pilot 

program to permit the listing and 

trading of options based on 1/100 the 

value of the Nasdaq–100 Index 

(‘‘Nasdaq–100’’) and the Exchange’s 

nonstandard expirations pilot program 

(collectively, the ‘‘Programs’’). The 

proposed rule change was published for 

comment in the Federal Register on 

March 2, 2023.3 On April 7, 2023, 

pursuant to section 19(b)(2) of the Act,4

the Commission designated a longer 

period within which to approve the 

proposed rule change, disapprove the 


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