Standard Chartered reverses its position and says the SEC is unlikely to approve a spot Ethereum ETF in May.

Previously bullish Standard Chartered Bank has now changed its stance on a spot Ethereum exchange-traded fund, saying the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is unlikely to approve such a fund in May.

“We had expected the SEC to approve the ETH ETF on May 23,” Jeffrey Kendrick, head of foreign exchange and digital assets research at Standard Chartered Bank, said in a report Tuesday.

“This is based on the view that the ETH approval process will follow a similar trajectory to the BTC ETF approval (which the SEC approved in January), but so far no such conversations have occurred, or at least have not been made public, so the approval date is 5 It’s unlikely to happen on the 23rd of the month,” Kendrick added.

SEC Delay

On Tuesday morning, the SEC postponed a decision on Franklin Templeton and Grayscale’s proposed spot Ethereum ETF, pushing Franklin Templeton’s ETF to June 11 and Grayscale’s ETF to June 23. After that, regulators can approve, disapprove or initiate proceedings.

Last month, the SEC also postponed decisions on applications for other spot Ethereum ETFs, including those from VanEck and BlackRock.

Standard Chartered is not alone in losing optimism about the approval of a spot Ethereum ETF in May. Last month, Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, said the probability of approval in May remained pessimistic, at 25%, up from 70% in January. Also last month, Alex Thorn, head of enterprise research at Galaxy Digital, said approval for a spot Ethereum ETF in May “looks very unlikely.”

Final approval expected

However, in the long term, Standard Chartered, like JPMorgan, is optimistic about spot Ethereum acceptance. Standard Chartered also maintains year-end target price levels of $150,000 for Bitcoin and $8,000 for ETH.

“The gradual removal of negative drivers will allow BTC’s bullish structural drivers to take over,” Kendrick wrote in the report. “As BTC prices rise, ETH will rise as well. Even if no US ETFs are approved in May, the global environment for ETFs continues to improve and US approval is expected eventually,” he concluded.

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet delivering news, research and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor in The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the cryptocurrency space. Cryptocurrency exchange Bitget is an anchor LP of Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to provide objective, impactful and timely information about the cryptocurrency industry. Below are our current financial disclosures.

© 2023 The Block. All rights reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not provided or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial or other advice.