Bitwise pledges 10% of spot Ether ETF profits to Ethereum developers

As the spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are about to see their first day of trading, asset manager Bitwise pledged to donate 10% of its profits to Ethereum developers. 

On July 22, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the final S-1 statements required to launch the spot Ether (ETH) ETFs on stock exchanges. This includes Nasdaq, the Chicago Board Options Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

As it debuts its ETF on the NYSE, Bitwise said that 10% of all its profits from the Bitwise Ethereum ETF (ETHW) will go to two Ethereum-focused organizations.

Bitwise to donate 10% of ETF profits to Ethereum devs

According to Bitwise, the proceeds will go to Protocol Guild, which supports over 170 core contributors to research and development for the Ethereum layer-1 protocol. Furthermore, part of the proceeds will also go to the PBS Foundation, a nonprofit that funds open-source Ethereum block relays and provides grants toward Ethereum decentralization.

Hong Kim, Bitwise’s chief technology officer, said that Ethereum is maintained by a dedicated community of open-source developers. Kim explained:

“Every investor in ETHW wants Ethereum to continue to advance, and this donation program contributes to that goal.”

Bitwise also promised to publish the wallet addresses of all of its ETHW holdings. This will allow investors to verify the fund’s holdings and flows by checking the blockchain directly.

Bitwise made a similar move for its spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs. In January, the company announced that it would donate 10% of its profits on the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB) to the open-source development of Bitcoin.

Apart from Bitwise, VanEck also pledged 5% of its spot Bitcoin ETF profits to Bitcoin core developers in January. The asset management firm said it also made a $10,000 donation to Bitcoin developers.

Ether price will be “sensitive” to ETF inflows

Crypto analytics firm Kaiko believes that the price of ETH will be sensitive to the inflows of the ETFs that will be launched. Kaiko’s head of indexes, Will Cai, said that while a full demand picture may not emerge for several months, the price of ETH could be sensitive to the inflow numbers in the first days.