Standard Chartered Says the SEC Would Approve Ether ETF This Week

Standard Chartered’s top analyst, Geoff Kendrick, stated that an Ether exchange-traded fund (ETF) is more imminent than widely expected. In a report on Tuesday, the firm’s head of digital assets research noted that he is “80% to 90% sure” that the Wall Street top regulator will approve an Ether ETF this week.

Kendrick further noted that he expects the Ether ETF product to make a splash in the market, much like Bitcoin did after its approval on January 11. He said the product would drive an inflow between 2.39 and 9.15 million ETH (an equivalent of $15 billion to $45 billion) in the first 12 months of trading.

The SEC has a May 23 deadline to decide on VanEck’s Ether ETF filing, with Ark Invest’s coming the next day.

Multiple Pointers to Approval

As against an earlier pessimism of a positive outcome in the SEC’s decision on an Ether ETF, the tables have well turned since the US regulator prompted the applicants to amend their 19b-4 filings. Fidelity, with the Bitcoin spot ETF ticker FBTC, has already resubmitted an updated application.

Reports also cited that the SEC discussed with exchanges that intend to list the spot Ether product on their applications. The report stated that the SEC asked the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and Nasdaq to tweak their filings, a sign that the regulator intends to approve the ETF soon.

Ether to $8,000 by Year End

Standard Chartered analyst Kendrick speculated that Ethereum would trade at $8,000 by the end of the year. He stated that if the SEC approved the Ether ETF this week, the asset would keep up with Bitcoin and maintain a 5.4% price ratio with the largest cryptocurrency throughout 2024.

“Given that we now see bitcoin reaching the $150,000 level by end-2024, this would imply a level of $8,000 for ether,” Kendrick stated.

Standard Chartered earlier predicted that Bitcoin would reach $200,000 by 2025 and Ethereum would hit $14,000 the same year. Ethereum is up over 20% in the past 24 hours, trading at $3,773, while Bitcoin has held onto $70,000.