Standard Chartered, a British multinational banking and financial services company, has revealed it expects the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to approve the listing of spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the country this week, and maintained its $8,000 price target for ETH.
The bank’s Head of FX Research and Digital Assets Research reportedly told The Block that with key deadlines for spot Ether ETF applications looming – May 23 for VanEck and May 24 for Ark 21 Shares – the bank is “80% to 90%” sure that these funds will be approved.
The potential impact is significant. Standard Chartered estimates that these spot Ether ETFs could attract significant investment, bringing in 2.39 to 9.15 million ETH within the first year, translating to roughly $15 billion to $45 billion in U.S. dollars in a figure that it sees as “proving accurate” according to estimates for inflows for the recently approved spot Bitcoin ETFs.
Looking beyond approval, the bank’s analysis suggests Ether’s price could keep on climbing rapidly this year and maintain a 5.4% price ratio with the flagship cryptocurrency Bitcoin, which would suggest an $8,000 price target by the end of the year if BTC maanges to hit $150,000 as it predicts.
Earlier this year the bank revealed it was expecting spot Ether ETF applications to be approved by May 23 , but given the market’s expectations of a rejection earlier this month the bank had said that delays in the approval were already “priced in.”
Standard Chartered’s prediction comes after a dramatic rise in cryptocurrency prices related to the potential approval of spot Ether exchange-traded funds in the U.S as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has abruptly requested that the exchanges that want to list and trade these funds update key filings related to these products, fueling speculation that the regulator is considering approving these products.
Before any trading can begin, issuers of spot Ether ETFs must receive the go-ahead on their S-1 registration statements, with the SEC having no set deadline to review these filings.
Featured image via Unsplash.
