Ethereum (ETH) exchange-traded funds will get approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission this week, Standard Chartered believes—and the prices of both ETH and Bitcoin (BTC) will rocket upwards as a result.
The British multinational bank’s digital assets researcher Geoff Kendrick wrote Tuesday that if the SEC approves ETH exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on Thursday, as expected, the price of the asset could rocket—and hit $8,000 by the end of the year.
ETH is currently trading at $3,770, according to CoinGecko, having shot up 22% in 24 hours after rumors swirled yesterday that a spot Ethereum ETF could hit the U.S. market sooner rather than later.
But the price of ETH isn’t the only thing that could benefit: Kendrick added that Bitcoin could face big upwards pressure, too. “The ETH news, if correct, comes at an opportune moment for BTC,” he said.
“An ETH ETF approval will further legitimize the sector and therefore be BTC-positive as well,” he continued, adding that he “would expect a fresh all-time high in BTC by the weekend.”
BTC’s price now stands at $70,314 per coin. It touched an all-time high of $73,737 in March, but had remained well below the $70,000 mark for much of the last month.
Ethereum is the network behind the second biggest digital asset, ETH. Many prominent asset managers have filed paperwork with the SEC to release a spot ETH ETF in the United States.
Such a fund would give everyday investors the ability to buy shares that trade on a stock exchange and track the price of ETH via brokerage accounts. VanEck, BlackRock, and Franklin Templeton are among the firms hoping to gain approval.
The SEC reluctantly said yes to 11 BTC ETFs in January, and they've since received record inflows—pushing the price of BTC up as a result.
But the regulator has been quiet on the process of approving the ETH ETFs, leading industry analysts in recent weeks to expect a delay on the process. That changed Monday, when analysts from Bloomberg said that they now expect imminent approval—a statement now echoed by Standard Chartered.
Standard Chartered predicted in April that BTC would hit $150,000 per coin this year, and that ETH could hit $8,000 this year and then $14,000 per coin by the end of 2025.
The bank reiterated that claim in today’s report.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
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