Ark Invest and 21 Shares have excluded staking plans from their revised spot Ethereum ETF proposal on May 10.

Their initial filing on Feb. 7 outlined intentions for the sponsor, 21 Shares, to stake a portion of the fund's assets through third-party providers, with the expectation of receiving ETH as staking rewards. However, this plan has been removed from the latest filing due to potential risks such as slashing penalties and inaccessible funds during bonding and unbonding.

Although the new filing retains broader discussions on staking-related impacts, including potential losses to other validators and its effect on ETH's price, the specific staking section has been omitted.

Bloomberg ETF analyst Erich Balchunas suggested that this alteration might be an effort to align application documents with SEC comments, even though no official comments have been made yet. He speculated that it could be a strategic move to either improve the application's chances or provide the SEC with less grounds for rejection.

The SEC is anticipated to make decisions on several spot Ethereum proposals within the next two weeks, including VanEck's application on May 23 and Ark and 21 Shares' application on May 24. However, it's expected that the agency will address all similar applications simultaneously.

Approval expectations are modest, with Polymarket odds indicating a 10% chance of spot Ethereum ETF approval by the end of the month, slightly up from the previous week's 7%.

Competing applications also include proposals involving ETH staking, with Franklin Templeton and Fidelity mentioning it in their February filings, and Grayscale including it in a March filing.