BlackRock has picked Galaxy Digital as one of the validators behind ETHB, its new spot Ethereum ETF that tries to pass staking rewards to investors.
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with over $12.5 trillion in assets, gave crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital a seat at the table for its newest crypto bet.
Galaxy Digital revealed in a Thursday press release, April 9, that it was approved as one of three validators helping run staking for the iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF, or ETHB, a fund that holds ETH▲$1,671.47 and aims to pass staking rewards to investors.
- Staking is basically the crypto version of earning a yield for helping secure a blockchain, where coins are locked up to support transaction validation and overall system security.
- In return, validators receive rewards generated by the network, similar in spirit to interest.
Spot Ethereum ETFs, which first launched in the U.S. in 2024, used to miss that piece, which made them feel a little incomplete to people who wanted both price exposure and income. But BlackRock now wants to fix it.
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Galaxy Digital’s Role in BlackRock’s Spot Ethereum ETF
Founded in 2018 by Mike Novogratz, Galaxy Digital is a crypto and data-center firm built to bring institutions into blockchain markets. The company went public on Nasdaq in May 2025 after years of trading in Canada, and it said its staking business ended 2025 with $5 billion of assets under stake across Ethereum, Solana and other networks.
It remains unclear how much Galaxy Digital will earn in management fees. BlackRock’s prospectus says the fund pays a Sponsor’s Fee of 0.25% a year, reduced to 0.12% for the first 12 months on the first $2.5 billion of assets, but that fee goes to BlackRock.
For staking, the fund takes a separate fee from rewards, covering BlackRock’s role, the execution partner, and outside staking providers, totaling 18% of rewards, with the rest going to investors, but it doesn’t disclose how that split is shared with Galaxy Digital.
Following the news, Galaxy Digital shares soared 11.3% to $21.1, per Yahoo Finance.
