Arthur Cheong, the founder and CEO of DeFiance Capital, predicts that Ether's price could surge to $4,500 before the first spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) receive official approval. On May 26, Cheong shared this forecast with his 167,000 followers on X, stating:
"4.5k before spot ETF goes live for trading [in my opinion]."
At the time of his post, Ether was trading at $3,903, marking a 2.57% increase in the 24 hours leading up to 10:56 am UTC, according to CoinMarketCap. If Cheong's prediction holds true, Ether would need to rise over 15% from its current price to reach $4,500.
This prediction follows the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) approval of the 19b-4 filings for eight spot Ether ETF issuers on May 23, allowing them to be listed and traded on their respective exchanges. The first group of approved ETFs includes filings from VanEck, BlackRock, Fidelity, Grayscale, Franklin Templeton, ARK 21Shares, Invesco Galaxy, and Bitwise.
Although the approval of the 19b-4 filings is a positive indication from the U.S. securities regulator, the ETF issuers still need to secure approval for their S-1 filings, which could take several months. Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart noted in a May 20 X post:
"It could be weeks to months before we see S-1 approvals and thus a live ETH ETF... That said, if we’re correct and we see these theoretical approvals later this week. It *should* mean that S-1 approvals are a matter of 'When' not 'If'..."
Can Ether gain an additional 15% before the ETF is approved?
Ether price has witnessed considerable upward movement following recent developments relating to spot Ether ETFs.
A potential rally to $4,500 looks plausible with additional good developments, as it would place Ether's price 8% below its all-time high of $4,891 achieved on Nov. 16, 2021.
However, ETH faces considerable resistance at the $4,000 and $4,100 mark. A hypothetical advance above $4,100 would liquidate approximately $500 million worth of cumulative leveraged short bets across all exchanges, according to CoinGlass statistics.
Andrey Stoychev, the head of prime brokerage at Nexo, believes that the approval of the ETF might be Ether's largest price driver during the current bull cycle, pushing Ether's price to $10,000.
May 2024, Cryptoniteuae