VanEck asked the SEC on Oct. 14 to withdraw its registration for the Lido Staked Ethereum ETF. No shares were ever issued, and the filing gives no reason for the decision.
VanEck filed with the SEC on Oct. 14 to withdraw the registration statement for its proposed Lido Staked Ethereum ETF. The move shelves a planned brokerage-account route to stETH exposure before any shares were issued or sold.
In its Form RW request, sponsor VanEck Digital Assets said it does not intend to proceed with distributing the fund's shares. It asked the SEC to consent to withdrawing the Form S-1 originally filed on Oct. 16, 2025. The letter offers no further explanation, according to The Defiant.
A first attempt at a Lido-linked fund
VanEck was the first firm to file for a US ETF tied to Lido's liquid staking token, stETH. The fund would have held stETH directly and tracked its price, less operating expenses, so investors could trade shares through brokers instead of holding the token themselves, according to the original prospectus.
The withdrawal cancels a proposed offering. It does not close a fund that investors already hold.
Other staking routes remain
US brokerage access to ether staking remains after the decision. The Grayscale Ethereum Staking ETF, or ETHE, trades on NYSE Arca and stakes a portion of its ether holdings. Its underlying asset is ether, however, rather than the stETH token VanEck proposed holding.
Recent SEC staff guidance explains how qualifying staking receipt tokens can fall into digital-tool or digital-commodity categories, and the decision follows it. Those FAQs are nonbinding staff views, not a Commission rule or approval of an ETF.
Crypto Briefing reports that development of liquid staking ETFs continues in both the US and Europe.
Sources: The Defiant, Crypto Briefing
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