Fidelity has officially filed documents with the U.S. SEC, preparing to add a 'staking' feature to its Ethereum spot ETF (ticker: FETH, currently valued at approximately $898 million). Key details include: • Up to 100% of the ETH held by the fund can be staked under normal circumstances (a portion will remain unstaked to meet redemption, fee, and liquidity needs). • Staking rewards: The fund keeps 85%, while the remaining 15% is distributed to sponsors, custodians, and node operators (Blockdaemon, Figment, Galaxy, etc. were mentioned in the documents). • Net rewards will first be used to cover the fund's own expenses, and any remaining rewards will be distributed to holders in cash on a quarterly basis. Once the filing takes effect, they plan to start staking as soon as possible. Thanks to the safe harbor rule issued by the IRS last November, which allows trusts like this to engage in staking without losing their original tax status, Grayscale and 21Shares have already set examples. BlackRock, on the other hand, launched a separate staking-specific product. Fidelity is taking a different approach by directly upgrading its existing FETH to also generate staking rewards. Moves like this show that major institutions are willing to upgrade from simply 'holding ETH' to 'holding + earning staking rewards.' In the long term, this is beneficial for institutional capital inflows.
