SEC Filing Document

Company: T. Rowe Price Active Crypto ETF
Ticker: 
CIK: 2089855
Filing Type: S-1/A
Document Type: S-1/A
Date Filed: 2026-05-15
Accession Number: 0001999371-26-010860
Exchange: 
SIC Code: 6221
SIC Description: Commodity Contracts Brokers & Dealers
URL: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2089855/000199937126010860/tknz-s1a_051526.htm

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stored for future use, or converted to government-backed currency such as the dollar. The value of ether is not backed by any government, corporation, or other identified body. Ethereum Blockchain and Consensus Mechanism Similar to Bitcoin, transactions on Ethereum are broadcasted over the Ethereum Network and registered in blocks, which are set to occur every 12 seconds. Ethereum blocks collectively track the full transaction history, the accounts and balances of users and contracts in the “Ethereum System,” and other blockchain data that collectively are referred to as the state of Ethereum. Ethereum ensures that its state transition is deterministic, meaning that given the same initial state and set of transactions, all nodes in the Ethereum Network are able to compute the same final state. Blocks are organized in a chain forming the “Ethereum Blockchain,” starting from the “genesis block” at height 0 (zero), which was created on July 30, 2015.

Unlike the Bitcoin System, which relies
on proof-of-work, Ethereum operates on a PoS consensus mechanism where users must lock a certain amount of ether to engage with transaction
validation and code execution. In contrast to proof-of-work, in which miners expend hardware and electricity to become eligible to append
new blocks to the blockchain, in PoS, users known as validators pledge capital denominated in ether as a “stake,” providing
a guarantee of action in good faith towards the honest operation of the network. If Ethereum Network participants detect a malicious activity
by a validator, such as proposing two different blocks at the same height or attesting to two different versions of the consensual Ethereum
Blockchain, they can cast a slashing alert that subtracts part of the malicious actor’s stake. As such, PoS substitutes the computational
cost to cheat on proof-of-work by the risk of losing part of a validator’s stake, aligning the incentives for consensus participants
to remain honest over time. Ethereum’s implementation of PoS also has a fork choice rule, which uses validators’ votes on
the chain with the most accumulated validator activity to select the consensual chain at any point in time.

Actors running Ethereum validators
range from individual enthusiasts to professional operations with dedicated hardware and data centers. Users activate a validator by running
consensus software on Ethereum and depositing 32 ether on a staking contract deployed on the Ethereum Network. They are rewarded with
newly issued ether as a subsidy and transaction fees paid by users to gain priority in having their transactions executed first. The Ethereum
Network’s complexity and reliance on staking attract a specific type of participant, one who is often deeply involved in the ecosystem,
increasing the likelihood for committed entities to take on the responsibilities of a validator.

Smart Contracts, Crypto Assets
and Decentralized Applications

The Ethereum Network allows users
to write and implement smart contracts — that is, general-purpose code that executes on every node in the network and can instruct
the transmission of information and value based on a sophisticated set of logical conditions. Using smart contracts, users can leverage
the EVM through its built-in programming language, Solidity, to create markets, store registries of debts or promises, represent the ownership
of property, move funds in accordance with conditional instructions and create crypto assets other than ether.

Development on the Ethereum Network
involves building more complex tools on top of smart contracts, such as dApps, organizations that are autonomous, known as decentralized
autonomous organizations (DAOs), and entirely new decentralized governance systems. For example, a company that distributes charitable
donations on behalf of users could hold donated funds in smart contracts that are paid to charities only if the charity satisfies certain
predefined conditions.

Ethereum is also a platform for
creating new crypto assets and conducting their associated initial coin offerings. It has a suite of standards that allow for the creation
of fungible crypto assets, such as governance tokens that confer voting power in DAOs or stablecoins pegged to government-backed currencies
like the dollar; non-fungible tokens allowing for the creation of unique representations of value, such as digital collectibles, digital
art, decentralized identity systems and digital characters and items in metaverses and videogames; and more versatile tokens that bring
new utility to dApps by integrating decentralized data provision and indexing. Many crypto assets in the crypto market were built on the
Ethereum Network.

An important set of dApps on the
Ethereum Network exists within the sector known as decentralized finance (DeFi) or open finance platforms, which seek to democratize access
to financial services, such as borrowing, lending, custody, trading, derivatives, and insurance, by removing third party intermediaries.
DeFi can allow users to lend and earn interest on their crypto assets, exchange one crypto asset for another, and create derivative crypto
assets such as stablecoins. For example, in August 2025, $44 billion worth of crypto assets were deposited on DeFi applications on the
Ethereum Network. Ethereum is also used to create decentralized naming systems, decentralized social networks, and the registry and commercialization
of digital art. More recently, companies and asset managers have started to use Ethereum to tokenize traditional assets such as money-market
funds. While experiencing a significant rise in total value secured by the Ethereum Network since inception, most applications in the
Ethereum ecosystem are still incipient and/or in experimental phase.

Since smart contracts are
general purpose software, they can be naturally used to create highly complex dApps, which can be further combined among themselves
in a composable manner to create even more complex applications. On the other hand, given the nascent nature of the EVM and
Solidity, there might be significant architectural risks and unseen bugs in Ethereum’s current technological stack. This may
pose relevant security risks on dApps running on the platform, lead to the drain, loss or indefinite lock of value deposited on
them, and potentially harm users interacting with such applications or having participation in the total value deposited in a
DApp.

Ether Supply

Unlike bitcoin, the supply schedule
of ether has changed a number of times since the inception of the Ethereum Network. The initial creation of ether involved the issuance
of 72.0 million tokens. Of these, 60.0 million ether (83.33% of the supply) were sold to the public in a crowd sale in 2014, raising approximately
$18 million. Another 6.0 million ether (8.33% of the supply) went to the Ethereum Foundation for operational costs, while 3.0 million
ether each (4.17% of the supply) were distributed to developers who contributed to the network and members of the Ethereum Foundation
for purchasing at the initial crowd sale price.

While currently operating under a
PoS consensus mechanism, the Ethereum Network started operation under a proof-of-work consensus mechanism similar to Bitcoin, migrating
to its current PoS consensus mechanism in September 2022 during an upgrade known as “The Merge.” Over time, new ether was
put into circulation by miners creating blocks on the Ethereum blockchain.

From the Genesis block to late 2017,
the mining subsidy on the Ethereum Network was equal to 5 ether per block. In October 2017, the Byzantium upgrade was activated, decreasing
the mining subsidy to 3 ether and aiming to prepare Ethereum for future scaling solutions. In February 2019, the Constantinople upgrade
further reduced the mining subsidy to 2 ether per block. In December 2020, Ethereum’s new PoS consensus layer called the Beacon
Chain was launched in preparation for The Merge in September 2022, introducing a deterministic supply curve that issues new ether to validators
based on the total amount of ether staked. In August 2021, the London upgrade introduced the concept of a base fee burn. This means
that a portion of the transaction fees paid by users on the network started being burned, effectively working as an ether supply reduction
mechanism. This base fee is algorithmically adjusted based on network demand, and ether burn is more intense in periods of high network
activity. The latest change in ether monetary policy took place during the Merge, in which mining was deprecated and mining subsidies
ceased. Unlike bitcoin, ether’s supply is uncapped and can be inflationary when the rate of new ether being created is higher than
the rate that ether is being destroyed.

In October 2025, ether had a total
circulating supply of about 121 million. In February 2025, of about 120 million circulating supply, approximately 72 million
ether were pre-mined, 50.4 million ether were issued by miners before the switch to PoS, 2.3 million ether were issued to validators
staking ether and 4.4 million ether were burned in base fees. There is no guarantee that the ether issuance policy will remain unchanged
over time, and future modifications to monetary policy might create splits in the Ethereum community and lead to two or more conflicting
Ethereum networks.

Ethereum protocol, clients and
network upgrades