STORY: :: Lisa Bernhard, Reuters

:: Joy Yang, Head of Product Management and Marketing, MarketVector Indexes

Tied to the price of ether, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency after bitcoin, the new ETFs mark another watershed event for the crypto industry’s push to go mainstream.

Ether ETFs from VanEck, Franklin Templeton, Fidelity, 21Shares and Invesco began trading on Cboe, while one from BlackRock began trading on the Nasdaq. Products from Bitwise and Grayscale Investments also started trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Yang compared Ethereum, the blockchain platform behind either, to “Android or an iOS where developers are building on top of it for different apps,” giving it the “capability of leading to new innovation.”

She added that it “also has cash flows in incentive rewards as well as fees for the platform. So it has cash flows that people can value, unlike bitcoin, which is more of a store of value and has no cash flows.”