Fidelity asked federal regulators to let it stake the ether inside its $898 million Ethereum fund and pay shareholders cash four times a year. Fidelity Investments moved to stake as much as 100% of the ether sitting in the Fidelity Ethereum Fund (FETH) and hand the proceeds back to shareholders as quarterly cash. That same guidance requires net staking rewards to go out at least quarterly, which is what sets the payment schedule. BlackRock built a separate vehicle instead, launching a staked ether ETF in March 2026 that opened with $100 million in assets and traded more than $15 million on its first day. That product now holds $577 million in net assets, against $5.6 billion in BlackRock’s flagship ether fund, according to SoSoValue.