Investment manager VanEck has fired up the marketing engine for its “upcoming” Ethereum futures exchange-traded fund (ETF), which some analysts expect could be launched as early as Oct. 2.
On Sept. 28, VanEck released the two “Enter the Ether” themed TV commercials, revealing that its Ethereum Strategy ETF — tickered EFUT — is “coming soon.”
The commercials came on the same day VanEck published a press statement about its upcoming EFUT, stating it will be listed on the Chicago Board Options Exchange and be managed by Greg Krezner, VanEck’s Head of Active Trading.
Bloomberg ETF analysts Eric Balchunas and James Seyffart believe the TV ads could hint that Ethereum futures ETFs are “happening sooner than expected.”
Seyffart expects VanEck’s new ETF to launch on Monday despite a Sept. 29 document stating it won’t take effect for another 60 days. “Our understanding is that the SEC is accelerating approvals for these things,” he said.
Quick correction: they actually won’t be effective until Friday. Still, same result: Monday launch.
The first of VanEck’s “Enter the Ether” advertisements is a rather short and quirky 15-second video featuring five actors looking at the camera with a deadpan expression and strange alien-sounding music in the background.
“Ethereum. Now in an ETF form. Coming soon,” says an actor.
“Oh and HODL or Fork Off,” says another actor, before the “Enter the Ether” message appears and the ad ends.
The second ad appears more straightforward, with a 30-second spot suggesting that a “shift” is coming soon and that Ethereum’s gravitational pull “will draw everyone in.”
Meanwhile, financial services firm Valkyrie told Cointelegraph that it will also soon begin offering exposure to Ether through its existing Bitcoin Strategy ETF — making it one of the first firms to do so amid several pending applications with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
On Sept. 28, Seyffart said in an X post that it was “looking like the SEC is gonna let a bunch of Ethereum futures ETFs go next week potentially,” spurred by a potentially imminent U.S. government shutdown.
There are 15 Ether futures ETFs from nine issuers vying to launch.
Nomura’s crypto arm gains regulatory green light in Dubai to offer institutional OTC crypto options, expanding the UAE’s footprint in global digital derivatives.
Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips has told Sky News that councils that believe they don’t have a problem with grooming gangs are “idiots” – as she denied Elon Musk influenced the decision to have a national inquiry on the subject.
The minister said: “I don’t follow Elon Musk’s advice on anything although maybe I too would like to go to Mars.
“Before anyone even knew Elon Musk’s name, I was working with the victims of these crimes.”
Mr Musk, then a close aide of US President Donald Trump, sparked a significant political row with his comments – with the Conservative Party and Reform UK calling for a new public inquiry into grooming gangs.
At the time, Ms Phillips denied a request for a public inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham on the basis that it should be done at a local level.
But the government announced a national inquiry after Baroness Casey’s rapid audit on grooming gangs, which was published in June.
Asked if she thought there was, in the words of Baroness Casey, “over representation” among suspects of Asian and Pakistani men, Ms Phillips replied: “My own experience of working with many young girls in my area – yes there is a problem. There are different parts of the country where the problem will look different, organised crime has different flavours across the board.
“But I have to look at the evidence… and the government reacts to the evidence.”
Ms Phillips also said the home secretary has written to all police chiefs telling them that data collection on ethnicity “has to change”, to ensure that it is always recorded, promising “we will legislate to change the way this [collection] is done if necessary”.
Operation Beaconport has since been established, led by the National Crime Agency (NCA), and will be reviewing more than 1,200 closed cases of child sexual exploitation.
Ms Phillips revealed that at least “five, six” councils have asked to be a part of the national review – and denounced councils that believed they don’t have a problem with grooming gangs as “idiots”.
“I don’t want [the inquiry] just to go over places that have already had inquiries and find things the Casey had already identified,” she said.
She confirmed that a shortlist for a chair has been drawn up, and she expects the inquiry to be finished within three years.
Ms Phillips’s comments come after she announced £426,000 of funding to roll out artificial intelligence tools across all 43 police forces in England and Wales to speed up investigations into modern slavery, child sex abuse and county lines gangs.
Some 13 forces have access to the AI apps, which the Home Office says have saved more than £20m and 16,000 hours for investigators.
The apps can translate large amounts of text in foreign languages and analyse data to find relationships between suspects.