ETC Group Physical Ethereum PoW (ZETW) ETP Launching on Deutsche Borse

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June 26, 2023

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An exchange-traded product (ETP) that tracks an Ethereum (ETH) proof-of-work (PoW) hard forked token is already being planned for listing in Europe, despite no such token existing as of now.

The new investment product is being prepared by the London-based crypto firm ETC Group, and will be listed on Deutsche Borse’s Xetra marketplace under the ticker ZETW shortly after a potential hard fork, if all goes according to plan.

According to an announcement from the company behind the planned fund, investors in its existing ETH ETP with the ticker ZETH will automatically receive shares of the new fund on a one-to-one basis if a hard fork occurs. The firm expects the new fund to be listed on September 16, the announcement said.

The full name for the new fund will be ETC Group Physical EthereumPoW.

Both the existing ETH ETP and the planned ETP are backed directly by digital tokens. This stands in contrast to the Bitcoin (BTC) futures-backed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that are listed in the US, where regulations have made it impossible to list physically backed ETPs or ETFs for now.

A potential new token that arises as a result of a hard fork as Ethereum’s main chain transitions from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake is tentatively called ETHPoW.

“When we launched ETC Group, we committed to holders of our digital asset-backed securities that they would benefit from hard forks to the underlying digital assets and cryptocurrencies,” Bradley Duke, founder and co-CEO of ETC Group, said in a comment, while adding:

“We believe that it is only right that investors in our products should receive the proceeds of this fork.”

ETC Group is one of several companies that offer ETPs backed by digital assets in Europe. Other companies include WisdomTree, 21Shares, CoinShares, and VanEck. Notably, European crypto ETPs have remained popular among investors despite bitcoin futures ETFs now being widely available in the US.

Exchanges remain supportive of PoS

Crypto exchanges have largely followed the majority of the Ethereum community, making it clear that they will support the network’s transition to PoS, and that the tokens on the PoS-based chain will simply be called ETH.

Still, many exchanges have not ruled out support for a potential Ethereum hard fork that remains on the PoW chain. For instance, Binance – the largest exchange by trading volume – has said that it will credit any forked ETH tokens to its users, while noting that a potential listing will be subject to “the same strict listing review process as Binance does for any other coin/token.”

The Ethereum Foundation has previously said the Merge can be expected to happen sometime between September 10 and 20.