BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, launched the iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF (ticker: ETHB) on Nasdaq on March 12, opening regulated access to Ethereum staking yield for the first time to traditional brokerage account holders.

How It Works

ETHB holds spot ETH and stakes 70–95% of those holdings through four validator operators: Coinbase Prime, Figment, Galaxy Digital, and Attestant. The Ethereum network currently pays roughly 3.1% annualized yield on staked assets. Investors receive approximately 82% of gross rewards as monthly cash distributions — about 1.9–2.2% net APY — while BlackRock and Coinbase retain the rest as a staking service fee.

The fund maintains a "Liquidity Sleeve" of 5–30% unstaked ETH to handle redemptions, since Ethereum staking exits face protocol-level queue delays.

ETHB debuted with $107 million in seed assets and $15.5 million in first-day trading volume. Its sponsor fee is 0.25% (waived to 0.12% on the first $2.5 billion for 12 months). BlackRock already runs ETHA, a non-staking Ethereum ETF with roughly $6.5 billion AUM; ETHB complements it for investors who want yield on top of price exposure.

Why Now

Under former SEC Chair Gary Gensler, staking was stripped from every Ethereum ETF application. The reversal under Chair Paul Atkins — aided by the GENIUS Act passed in July 2025, which established precedent for yield-generating crypto products in regulated structures — cleared the path for staking ETFs.

ETHB sets a template that applies to every other proof-of-stake chain. Analysts expect Solana, Cardano, and Polkadot staking ETFs to follow.