SECTION 6. SAFE HARBOR

.01 Safe Harbor . Provided all the requirements in section 6.02 of this revenue procedure are satisfied, a trust’s authorization, pursuant to its trust agreement, to stake its digital assets and the resulting staking of the trust’s digital assets do not prevent the trust from qualifying for Federal income tax purposes as a trust classified as an investment trust under § 301.7701-4(c) and as a grantor trust. References in section 6 of this revenue procedure to actions taken by the trust also include actions directed by the sponsor of the trust pursuant to the trust agreement.

.02 Requirements . (1) Interests in the trust are traded on a national securities exchange. The trust’s activities comply with the SEC’s regulations and rules. The trust’s disclosure regarding the staking of its digital assets has been reviewed and approved by the SEC. The trust’s assets and activities are described in the May 29, 2025, Statement on Certain Protocol Staking Activities of the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance. The trust has written liquidity risk policies and procedures that comply with the rules of the national securities exchange on which the trust interests are listed and traded.

(2) The trust owns only cash and units of a single type of digital asset (as defined by section 6045(g)(3)(D)), transactions

6 See SEC Release No. 34-103972, 90 FR 45075 (Sept. 18, 2025); SEC Release No. 34-103974, 90 FR 45082 (Sept. 18, 2025); SEC Release No. 34-103973, 90 FR 45089 (Sept. 18, 2025).

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including variations based on the value of the digital assets or the amount of staking rewards.

(6) The trust directs the staking of its digital assets through one or more custodians who facilitate the staking of the digital assets on the trust’s behalf with one or more staking providers. The trust and the sponsor are unrelated to the staking provider. The trustee, sponsor, or custodian performs all appropriate due diligence with regard to the selection of each staking provider and negotiates, on behalf of the trust, the provisions of the contract with the staking provider. The staking provider regularly enters into arrangements with unrelated persons involving similar activities, and such other persons are also unrelated to the trust, the custodian, and the sponsor. The staking provider bears its own expenses. The allocation of staking rewards between the staking provider and the custodian on behalf of the trust is an arm’s length allocation that is independent of the expenses of the staking provider or custodian, and may be stated as a percentage of the staking rewards derived from staking the trust’s digital assets. The other terms and conditions of the custodian’s arrangements with the staking provider reflect arm’s length terms.

(7) The trust, the custodian in its capacity as such, and the sponsor have no legal right or arrangement to participate in or direct or control the activities of the staking provider in any way, and do not do so, except to direct the staking and unstaking of the trust’s digital assets as provided in this section 6.02.

(8) All of the digital assets of the trust must be made available to the staking provider to be staked at all times, except as provided in sections 6.02(9), (10), (11), and (12) of this revenue procedure.

(9) When appropriate in the trustee’s or sponsor’s reasonable judgment to comply with the trust’s liquidity risk policies and procedures required by the national securities exchange on which the interests in the trust are listed and traded, a trust may stake less than all its digital assets to create and maintain a liquidity reserve. The trust’s liquidity risk policies and procedures must be based solely on factors relating to the requirement of the national secu

rities exchange that assets be readily available to meet redemption requests within the required period. The trust may increase or decrease the liquidity reserve in compliance with its liquidity risk policies and procedures, provided that, to the extent the liquidity reserve is reduced, the trust shall resume making the digital assets not subject to the liquidity reserve available for staking as soon as and to the extent reasonably possible. On the occurrence of one or more of the events described in section 6.02(10) and (11) of this revenue procedure, the trust shall direct the staking or unstaking of a necessary number of its digital assets to satisfy its liquidity reserve as soon as and to the extent reasonably possible.

(10) In addition to holding in a liquidity reserve (as described in section 6.02(9) of this revenue procedure), if any, digital assets that are not staked, the trust also may, on a short-term temporary basis and in connection with one or more of the following events, hold additional digital assets that are not staked, provided that the trust shall make such digital assets available for staking (subject to section 6.02(9) of this revenue procedure, if applicable) as soon as and to the extent reasonably possible:

(i) the sale of digital assets for cash to pay trust expenses;

(ii) the contribution of digital assets in connection with the creation of interests in the trust or distributions of digital assets to trust interest holders in redemption of their interests in the trust;

(iii) the purchase of digital assets in connection with the creation of trust interests for cash or the sale of digital assets to make cash redemptions of trust interests; or

(iv) the ownership of additional digital assets received as, or available for receipt, as staking rewards.

(11) In addition to holding in a liquidity reserve (as described in section 6.02(9) of this revenue procedure), if any, digital assets that are not staked, the trust also may, in connection with one or more of the following events, hold additional digital assets that are not staked, provided that the trust shall make such digital assets available for staking (subject to section 6.02(9) of this revenue procedure, if appli

cable) as soon as and to the extent reasonably possible:

(i) obtaining or disposing of digital assets through the contingent liquidity arrangement described in section 6.02(12) of this revenue procedure pursuant to applicable law or regulatory rules;

(ii) the sale of digital assets for cash in connection with the trust’s liquidation;

(iii) the need to take protective measures against potential systemic vulnerabilities in the network’s protocol, the staking smart contracts, or the validator client software;

(iv) the cessation of the arrangement between the trust and a custodian, but only with respect to the digital assets affected by the cessation;

(v) the cessation of the arrangement between a custodian and a staking provider, but only with respect to the staked digital assets affected by the cessation; or

(vi) a change in applicable law or regulation.

(12) When appropriate in the trustee’s or sponsor’s reasonable judgment to comply with the trust’s liquidity risk policies and procedures required by the national securities exchange on which the interests in the trust are listed and traded, the trust may enter into a contingent liquidity arrangement intended to mitigate an adverse liquidity event that otherwise would prevent the fund from distributing digital assets or cash to trust interest holders in redemption of their interests in the trust, provided that the digital assets or cash obtained through the contingent liquidity arrangement are expected to be distributed, or included in a pool of assets expected to be distributed, in the near future. For purposes of the foregoing sentence, a contingent liquidity arrangement is (a) a lending facility or other arrangement permitting the trust to borrow cash or (b) an arrangement to sell or purchase digital assets for cash or digital assets on a current or deferred basis.

(13) To protect or conserve the trust’s property, the trust’s digital assets are indemnified from slashing due to the activities of staking providers.

(14) The only new assets received by the trust as a result of staking its digital assets are additional units, in the same form, of the single type of digital asset

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expressly addressed in this revenue procedure, including with respect to forks and airdrops.