The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is looking to approve spot Ethereum ETFs by May 23rd of this year, a January 30 report revealed.
A Positive Outlook
The Block’s report stems from Standard Chartered Bank – a London-based, multinational bank in which its head of forex and digital assets research, Geoffrey Kendrick, expects approval for spot Ethereum ETFs to come sooner rather than later.
“We expect pending applications for ETH U.S. spot ETFs to be approved on May 23, the final deadline for the first of the ETFs under consideration – the equivalent date to Jan. 10 for BC ETFs,” Kendrick detailed in the report. “If ETH prices perform similarly to how BC prices performed in the lead-up to BTC ETF approval, ETH could trade as high as $4,000 by then.”
An Ethereum ETF will be approved in May
BlackRock/ Larry Fink is on a mission to tokenize the world. He will get it done!
— borovik.eth (@3orovik) January 30, 2024
Conflicting Reports
Standard Chartered Bank’s was published just one day after New York-based investment bank TD Cowen surmised that SEC approval of spot Ethereum ETFs would be delayed to 2025 or 2026 due to the political climate in the United States.
“Our view remains that Gensler is in no hurry to approve an Ethereum ETF as he would first like more experience with the performance of the recently approved spot Bitcoin ETFs,” an analysis from TD Cowen stated on Monday.
Standard Chartered Bank has joined numerous financial firms and ETF analysts in their expectation of a May 23rd approval date, given the SEC’s deadline to approve or deny applications made by Ark21Shares and VanEck.
I remember when BlackRock initially filed for the BTC spot ETF around $25k and how slow the bid came to the market in the proceeding days.
Ethereum here feels the exact same.
— McKenna (@Crypto_McKenna) January 30, 2024
Moreover, in an interview earlier this month, Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas estimated a 70% chance that spot Ethereum ETFs would be approved by May.
A Good Sign for spot Ethereum ETFs?
Experts’ optimistic expectations for a spot Ethereum ETF follow the SEC’s decision earlier this month to approve spot Bitcoin ETFs after nearly a decade, prompting the cryptocurrency’s price to amount to over $49,000. Many analysts deemed this a “sell-the-news” as the token’s price eventually fell below $40,000, however.
Additionally, a recent mass unloading of GBTC by bankrupt crypto exchange FTX saw the market experience a not-insignificant downturn.
Currently, it seems to be on the rebound, with Bitcoin trading at over $43,000.
Nonetheless, numerous analysts are hopeful about what it could mean for spot Ethereum ETFs.
“Seeing big regulated institutions having that ability to issue Bitcoin ETFs is a very powerful statement for the market,” Goldman Sachs’ digital asset head Matthew McDermott told CNBC in a recent interview.
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