According to a report by “The Block,” Standard Chartered Bank, which had previously been optimistic, has now changed its stance on the approval of an Ethereum spot ETF, stating that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is unlikely to approve such funds in May. Geoffrey Kendrick, Head of Foreign Exchange and Digital Assets Research at Standard Chartered Bank, wrote in a report released on Tuesday (23rd):
The U.S. SEC recently delayed decisions on Ethereum spot ETF applications from Franklin Templeton and Grayscale, with deadlines extended to June 11th and June 23rd respectively. Last month, the SEC also delayed decisions on other Ethereum spot ETF applications, including those from VanEck and BlackRock.
The optimism for the approval of Ethereum spot ETFs in May has waned not only for Standard Chartered Bank, but also for Bloomberg’s senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, who expressed pessimism about the possibility of such ETFs being approved in May, with a probability of only 25%, lower than the 70% in January. Alex Thorn, Head of Research at Galaxy Digital’s Firmwide Research department, also previously stated that the approval of Ethereum spot ETFs in May seems “extremely unlikely.”
Expected Approval in the Long Run
However, in the long term, Standard Chartered Bank remains optimistic about the approval of Ethereum spot ETFs, similar to JPMorgan’s perspective. The bank also maintains its end-of-year price predictions of $150,000 for Bitcoin (BTC) and $8,000 for Ethereum (ETH).
Kendrick wrote in the report: