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Greenlight for Spot Ether ETFs: Brace for Market Disruption

Despite widespread skepticism from crypto analysts and the larger crypto community regarding the approval of spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETF) by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), some analysts are suggesting that there might be room for a surprise.

Crypto trader Matthew Hyland, in a post to his 142,000 followers on May 17, expressed that if the SEC were to unexpectedly approve the Ether ETF, it would catch many people off guard. He pointed out that if the majority of investors anticipate a denial and fear it leading to a crypto market crash, there might not be many sellers in the event of approval, as the expectation of denial is already factored into prices. At the time of his post, Ether was trading at $3,102.

Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas has placed the odds of approval at 35%, whereas the broader crypto community estimates are closer to 7%, according to New York-based crypto predictions platform Polymarket.

On the other hand, Coinbase institutional research analyst David Han believes there is a chance for a positive surprise in the decision. In Coinbase’s monthly outlook report released on May 15, Han stated that they believe the odds of approval are around 30-40%. He argues that as cryptocurrency becomes a more significant issue for voters leading up to the November US presidential election, the SEC may be less inclined to maintain its stance on a denial decision.

Han also suggested that even if the ETF applications from VanEck and ARK Invest are denied by the initial deadline of May 23, there is a possibility of litigation overturning that decision.

May 2024, Cryptoniteuae

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Vaibhavv Ali
Vaibhavv Ali

Vaibhavv Ali is the founder and editor of Cryptonite (cryptonite.ae), an independent digital-asset news and analysis publication with a UAE focus. He covers virtual-asset regulation — VARA, ADGM and the UAE Central Bank — alongside real-world-asset tokenization, stablecoins and agentic AI in finance. Every Cryptonite article is human-edited and its sources are linked. He is also a celebrated speaker and host.

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