The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved Ethereum spot ETF applications from BlackRock and Co. Here's how the market reacted.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released the Ethereum Spot ETF-applications from several asset managers were approved. This is evident from the public documents of authority.

The American securities regulator gave the green light to a total of eight applicants. Grayscale, Bitwise, BlackRock, Fidelity, VanEck, Ark/21Shares, Franklin Templeton and Invesco Galaxy. All have been waiting for a long time to be licensed.

Experts such as Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart emphasize, however, that the approvals relate primarily to "19b-4" applications. These are basically statements of intent by an exchange (in this case NYSE) to take a financial product public. The SEC has now granted these.

In the coming weeks, the actual "S-1" application from BlackRock, Fidelity and Co. should also be approved.

Until recently, it was considered unlikely that the SEC would give the green light for an Ethereum ETF, as VanEck's CEO confirmed. The SEC, however, put the rumor mill in motion with signals to the contrary.

It remains to be seen whether Ether ETFs will be modeled after the success of Bitcoin ETFs approved in January. In the past four months, more than $13 billion has flowed into Bitcoin-based exchange-traded funds.

In an initial reaction, the ETH price rose slightly by 2 percent. At the time of writing, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is trading at $3.684. In the past 30 days, Ethereum has risen by as much as 30 percent.