Hong Kong regulators may approve the widely anticipated staking features for spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds this year, a Blockdaemon executive said, as the region continues its drive to become a crypto hub.

In an interview with The Block in Singapore at Token2049, Blockdaemon Head of International and VP Andrew Vranjes said that his team is working closely with spot crypto ETF issuers in Hong Kong to develop feasible staking solutions in discussions with local regulators.

Vranjes said that the team has made progress, and the regulators may approve the staking feature “within certain constructs and boundaries.”

“Let's see how the market wants to evolve. There could be a model where maybe it’s accredited investors and above have this sort of option first. Maybe it goes that way, and it gets to step through over time,” Vranjes added. “We're positive because of the level of conversation.”

Vranjes explained that the Blockdaemon team is “very deep in conversations” with its clients and regulators with “multi-page documents back and forth.”

“That level of rigor is going on,” Vranjes said. “We're in that sort of fine-grained kind of motion. I think we're closer to the announcement than further away at this stage.”

Despite the initial hype surrounding spot crypto ETFs in Hong Kong, their performance has been relatively underwhelming compared to their U.S. counterparts. Many industry players have said that a potential staking feature for spot ether ETFs could provide the products with a competitive advantage. 

Spot crypto ETF flows in Hong Kong have paled in comparison with their U.S. counterparts. For example, the total trading volume of the three spot ether ETFs in Hong Kong was $390,000 on Monday with zero daily flows, while the nine ETFs in the U.S. recorded $129 million in trading volume on Monday and $9.5 million in net daily outflows, according to SosoValue data.

“It wouldn't surprise me if we saw an announcement around Ethereum staking for ETFs in Hong Kong before the U.S., for example. That would not surprise me,” Vranjes said.

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

© 2024 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。