New BlackRock Staked Ethereum Fund to Pay 82% of Rewards to Investors

BlackRock is launching its iShares Staked Ethereum Trust on Nasdaq Thursday morning, the firm told Decrypt ahead of the debut.

The new exchange-traded product, which will trade under the ETHB ticker, will pass on 82% of its staking rewards to investors through monthly payments—a schedule similar to how other funds pay dividends. The remaining 18% worth of rewards will be split between the trust, custodians, and its staking service providers.

The ETHB fund will stake between 70-95% of its Ethereum at any given time, the firm said in its prospectus.

The company’s digital assets exchange-traded product suite also includes the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), which launched in January 2024, and the iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA), which made its debut in July 2024.

BlackRock U.S. Head of Equity Jay Jacobs told Decrypt he expects there’ll be some movement of funds from ETHA to ETHB.

“It’s been around for almost two years and has $6.5 billion in assets. It’s highly liquid. It’s got a robust options market around it. For many investors, that’s going to be very appealing,” he said of ETHA, adding that some investors may not be interested in participating in a fund that stakes ETH.

But based on outreach to clients, he said “the majority of Ethereum investors are interested in staking, so we believe that there will be some shift to ETHB.”

Jacobs added that ETHB may also help draw in Ethereum investors who weren’t previously interested in an ETH-based fund.

“I also think there’s going to be a significant shift from people who are just owning ETH directly into ETHB. For people who own it directly that were engaging in staking, they may not have seen existing ETP solutions as kind of apples to apples,” he said. “But now that ETHB will offer staking, then I think it’s much more comparable to what they were expecting in owning ETH and staking it directly.”

BlackRock has chosen Coinbase and Anchorage Digital as its custodians. In an amendment to the fund’s prospectus filed on March 9, BlackRock disclosed that Coinbase will receive 10% of all staking rewards as a “base staking fee.” But if the fund reaches $20 billion in assets under management, then the fee will drop to 6% of rewards.

So far, the fund has approved Figment Inc., Galaxy Blockchain Infrastructure LLC, and London-based Attestant Limited as validators, according to its prospectus.

A recent SEC amendment said Coinbase will be responsible for the initial review of “Approved Validators” that facilitate ETH staking. BlackRock is also requiring validators to not “commingle or pool” its ETH with digital assets of any other person or entity and maintain a separate keypair that’s only associated with ETH belonging to its fund.

BlackRock’s main competition will be Grayscale. The firm issues the Grayscale Ethereum Staking ETF, or ETHE, and Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust, which trades under the ETH ticker.

The firm said in an SEC filing that 94% of rewards earned pass through to investors in its Ethereum Mini Trust, and 77% of rewards pass through to ETHE investors. It’s worth noting that ETHE carries a 2.5% management fee, which is several times higher than the 0.25% BlackRock will charge on ETHB once its introductory fee of 0.12% expires.

Meanwhile, the Grayscale Mini Ethereum Trust charges a more competitive 0.15% fee.

Both Grayscale and BlackRock were beaten to market by the REX-Osprey ETH + Staking ETF, which launched in September 2025 for U.S. investors. It’s more of a fund of funds, with a staking element. The fund charges a flat 0.75% management fee and passes on all staking rewards to investors—but the bulk of its assets are invested in other funds, with 13.7% sitting in Ethereum at the time of writing.

The rest of the fund’s $1.6 million has been divided among the WisdomTree Physical Ethereum and CoinShares Ethereum Staking ETPs