Standard Chartered Bank has joined the trend by making a positive prediction that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will approve a spot Ethereum ETF by May.
An analyst says that it will follow similar approval pattern as the spot Bitcoin ETF, which was approved on Jan. 10.
Standard Chartered Bullish on Ethereum ETF
In a recent report, Standard Chartered Bank anticipates that the US SEC will utilize the entire deadline, making a decision on May 23.
The major bank foresees approval for the spot Ethereum ETF, mirroring the SEC’s previous decision on a spot Bitcoin ETF.
Geoff Kendrick, the head of FX Research, West, and Digital Assets Research at Standard Chartered also touched on the recent speculation caused by the large sell-off in Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), following its conversion to a spot Bitcoin ETF.
Bitcoin experienced a decline in price, dropping by around 10% following the announcement of Bitcoin ETF approval. This decrease is attributed to investors selling off GBTC shares. Despite this, Kendrick is optimistic that the scenario will differ when Grayscale converts its Ethereum Trust into a spot Ethereum ETF.
Ethereum Price Speculation Post-Approval
This prediction stems from the fact that the Ethereum Trust does not command the same significant market share of Ethereum as the Bitcoin Trust did for Bitcoin.
Furthermore, the bank believes that Ethereum will hit $4,000 before the approval date.
At the time of publication, Ethereum’s price is $2,338. This prediction represents a 70% rise in the price of Ethereum.
Kendrick declares that the price should remain more stable for Ethereum. Even if investors were to sell their shares after the conversion:
“These factors should make ETH less vulnerable than BTC to a post-approval selloff.”
The approval process is similar to the sequence of events observed with the spot Bitcoin ETF in 2023. The SEC consistently postponed the approval date until it reached the final deadline.
On Jan. 25, BeInCrypto reported that US SEC postponed the decision on asset management firm BlackRock’s spot Ethereum ETF application.
While it had a deadline to make a proposed rule change on January 25, it has pushed a verdict back another 45 days.
Source : BeInCrypto by Ciaran Lyons / Jan 31, 2024