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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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

PoS, the fork choice rule, the EVM
architecture and the monetary policy of ether comprise the “Ethereum Protocol,” the full set rules that users of the Ethereum
System have to agree on in order to participate in the network. Implementations of the Ethereum Protocol are called “Ethereum Clients.”
These are open-source codes that can be maintained by anyone and used by any individual wishing to join the Ethereum Network. Every computer
running an instance of an Ethereum Client is called a node. The infrastructure of the Ethereum Network is collectively maintained by various
participants, which includes validators, developers, and users. Validators register transactions inside blocks and provide security to
the Ethereum Network. Developers maintain and contribute updates to Ethereum Clients. Users access the Ethereum Network either running
their own node or communicating with nodes run by a third party server. Anyone can be a user, developer, or validator, but not all network
participants need to run a node.

Similar to BIPs, Ethereum upgrade
proposals are known as Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs). However, all Ethereum upgrades are made through hard forks, which are not
backward-compatible and thus demand Ethereum users to update their clients to continue having access to the Ethereum Network. The Merge
introduced the Beacon Chain as the new consensus layer of Ethereum, responsible for block production and finalization, whereas the original
Ethereum chain remained as the network’s execution layer, in which code execution takes place. This transition was expected since
the network’s launch in mid-2015, and aimed at reducing Ethereum’s overall energy consumption while paving the way for higher
scalability and increased transaction throughput. Since the Merge, all upgrades on Ethereum consist of new releases for both consensus
and execution software of all clients implementing the Ethereum Protocol.

While the Ethereum Protocol is an
open-source project with no official company or group in control, there is one entity called the Ethereum Foundation which supports the
development, growth, and research on Ethereum. It plays a role in stewarding the Ethereum ecosystem, but it does not control or manage
the network. Instead, the Foundation provides resources, grants, and coordination to help maintain the Ethereum protocol and its infrastructure.

Unlike Bitcoin, which has Bitcoin
Core as its dominant client, the Ethereum Network is operated by a more diverse list of clients. In October 2025, about 44% of Ethereum
nodes run the geth client, 18% the nethermind client, 18% of the go-ethereum client, and the remaining are split among other clients.
Core developers of Ethereum clients are able to access, and can alter, the client’s source code and, as a result, they are responsible
for official releases of updates and other changes to Ethereum Clients.

Network Upgrades. Since the
Merge, Ethereum experienced the successful activation of two other upgrades: (i) the Shanghai/Capella (Shapella) upgrade, activated in
April 2023, which enabled ether withdrawals for validators participating in the network’s consensus layer and (ii) the Cancun/Deneb
(Dencun) upgrade in March 2024, which activated proto-danksharding (EIP-4844), a new technology that reduces the costs for second
layer solutions known as rollups to post data on Ethereum and thus decreases transaction fees paid by users using these upper layers to
access the Ethereum ecosystem.

Particularly, following the Dencun
upgrade, most second layers that had properly prepared for the activation of EIP-4844 experienced, as expected, reduced transaction fees
when batching transactions to the main Ethereum Network. In turn, the upgrade lowered the transaction costs for executing transactions
on such networks and significantly reduced activity on Ethereum’s base layer. However, some second layer solutions reportedly experienced
outages and other disruptions in the aftermath of the upgrade, which in the case of “Blast,” one of Ethereum’s rollups,
led to a halt in block production for a period of time. Blast normal operation was reportedly restored afterward. As with any change to
open-source software code and client overhaul, planned forks such as the ones activated since the Merge could introduce bugs, coding defects,
unanticipated or undiscovered problems, flaws, security risks, problematic incentive structures, or otherwise fail to work as intended
or achieve the expected benefits that proponents hope for in the short term or the long term.

Because Ethereum has no central authority,
the release of updates to Ethereum Clients by their developers does not guarantee that the updates will be automatically adopted by the
other network participants. Users and validators must accept any changes made to the source code by downloading the proposed modification
and that modification is effective only with respect to those Ethereum users and validators who choose to download and run it. As a practical
matter, a modification to the source code becomes part of the Ethereum Network only if it is accepted by individuals that collectively
have a majority of the Ethereum Network. If a modification is accepted by only a percentage of users and validators, a division will occur
such that one network will run the pre-modification source code and the other network will run the modified source code.

As a continuation to the Ethereum
2.0 transition, Ethereum underwent a third upgrade called Pectra, which was activated in May 2025. Pectra activated a number of EIPs,
including:

●	Staker Flexibility: Validators can now accumulate rewards, holding balances from 32 to 2048 ether
and earning compounding rewards. The prior distributing validator model (which sends rewards above 32 ether to a withdrawal address) remains
supported.

●	User Experience Enhancements: Self-custodied wallets can now delegate to smart contracts, enabling new
functionality such as sponsorship.

Ethereum wallets and transactions

Similar to the Bitcoin System, users
of the Ethereum Network must either run an Ethereum Client or use an Ethereum wallet. To initiate an Ethereum transaction, users generate
a pair of private and public keys, the latter being used to receive funds, and the former to authenticate transactions, send funds and
interact with dApps on the platform. The same careful management of private keys must be carried out in the case of Ethereum, allowing
a user to securely custody ether and other crypto assets living on the Ethereum Network. Nonetheless, in contrast to Bitcoin, where multiple
private-public key pairs can be derived from a single seed phrase, Ethereum operates on an account-based model. This means that instead
of tracking multiple individual key pairs, a single account is used to manage the balance of ether and crypto assets. Each account has
an associated public address and private key, and the entire balance is tied to the account rather than to individual key pairs. To execute
any transaction on Ethereum, including sending ether and other crypto assets, and interacting with dApps, a user must hold enough ether
on its balance to pay for the gas costs of the corresponding code execution.

Ether Markets

The Ethereum market includes a wide
array of participants in the investment, retail, and service sectors. The investment sector, similar to bitcoin, includes both private
and professional investors who trade ether for speculative purposes. The retail sector involves users who buy ether to transfer it or
to pay for transaction fees when transferring other crypto assets and interacting with dApps on the Ethereum Network. Retail users can
also buy ether to pay for goods and services, though its adoption as a payment method is still in its infancy. The service sector, on
the other hand, is expanding rapidly, with companies like Coinbase, Kraken, and Gemini providing essential services such as trading, payment
processing, custodial solutions and staking. As Ethereum continues to evolve, the service sector is expected to grow, offering more sophisticated
and varied services to accommodate the network’s increasing user base and its unique functionalities like smart contracts.