Fidelity Investments has filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to add staking to its spot Ether ETF, the Fidelity Ethereum Fund. The Fidelity Ethereum ETF staking proposal, filed Tuesday, would allow FETH to stake up to 100% of its Ether holdings under normal conditions, excluding ETH reserved for redemptions, expenses and liquidity needs. The fund would retain 85% of staking rewards, with 15% allocated to staking fees, and plans to distribute rewards to investors quarterly, though payouts are not guaranteed. Fidelity expects staking to begin “as soon as practicable” after the prospectus becomes effective. The preliminary filing remains subject to change.
FETH has recorded approximately $2.13 billion in cumulative net inflows since its July 2024 launch, according to Farside Investors. The ETF was leading pre-market gains across most Ether funds ahead of Wednesday’s US open, up 2.4%, according to Yahoo Finance data.
A Market Already Moving in This Direction
Fidelity is not the first to pursue this. Grayscale became the first US issuer to enable staking in spot crypto exchange-traded products in October 2025. BlackRock launched its separate iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF in February 2026. Bitwise attempted the same but withdrew its proposal in September 2025. Fidelity’s filing confirms that staking-enabled Ether products are becoming the industry standard rather than the exception and that FETH’s lack of staking has become a competitive liability.
Fidelity Ethereum ETF Staking Changes What These Products Actually Are
The addition of staking to spot Ether ETFs is, in my opinion, more significant than a product feature update. It transforms these instruments from passive price-exposure vehicles into yield-generating asset. An ETF that holds Ether and stakes it is not just giving investors exposure to ETH price movements. It is putting that ETH to work on the Ethereum network, earning rewards from the validation process that secures the blockchain, and distributing those rewards back to shareholders.
That distinction matters for how institutional allocators think about Ether ETFs relative to Bitcoin ETFs. Bitcoin ETFs cannot offer yield as it has no staking mechanism. Ether ETFs with staking enabled can offer a return on top of price exposure, which gives portfolio managers a fundamentally different reason to hold them. As Bitmine’s $45.7 million quarterly staking revenue demonstrated earlier this month, Ethereum staking at institutional scale generates real, measurable income. Fidelity bringing that capability to a retail and institutional ETF wrapper is another step in the same direction the market has been moving.
