Ethereum Price Surges On Hopes That Bitcoin's ETF Breakthrough Opens The Door For ETH ETFs

Ethereum Price Surges On Hopes That Bitcoin’s ETF Breakthrough Opens The Door For ETH ETFs

Updated: 11 January 2024

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Following the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs (exchange-traded funds) in the US, the possibility that Ethereum ETFs could be next has triggered a wave of investment into the ETH market.

ETH, the second biggest cryptocurrency by market cap, has surged 13.5% in the past 24 hours to trade at $2,596 at 12:21 p.m. EST. Interest in Ethereum-based projects and Layer 2 (L2) projects also surged.

This is best seen in how L2 tokens like Arbitrum, (ARB), Optimism (OP), Polygon (MATIC), Immutable X (IMX), SKALE (SKL), and Mantle (MNT) have performed.

ETH — ARB/USDT 1-day chart, OP/USDT 1-day chart, MATIC/USDT 1-day chart, IMX/USDT 1-day chart, MNT/USDT 1-day chart, SKL/USDT 1-day chart

“The largest smart money inflows” were channeled to the Ethereum ecosystem in the past 24 hours, said Martin Lee, a Nansen analyst on Telegram.

So, will ETH ETFs be next?

Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Eric Balchunas says there’s a 70% chance for the approval of a spot Ethereum ETF and Valkyrie Funds Chief Investment Officer Steven McClurg told Bloomberg TV that he wouldn’t be surprised if an ETH ETF comes to market

“The approval of the Bitcoin ETFs by the SEC has opened the door for other cryptocurrencies,” said Lucy Ho, a senior analyst at Metalpha..

🚨NEW: @ValkyrieFunds Chief Investment Officer @stevenmcclurg says it wouldn’t surprise him if he saw “Ripple” ($XRP) and Ethereum spot ETFs coming to market now that the @SECGov is about to approve one for Bitcoin. pic.twitter.com/EBcwvbgChs

— Eleanor Terrett (@EleanorTerrett) January 9, 2024

Ether ETF Race Has Begun

The campaign for Ether ETFs has kicked off in earnest, with BlackRock, Fidelity, VanEck, Ark 21Shares, Hashdex, Grayscale, and Invesco Galaxy already having filed applications.

#BitcoinETF = ✅#EthereumETF =❓

Here are the deadlines for spot $ETH ETF applications.

First final deadline is May 23rd – could we see the #Ethereum ETF approved shortly after the #Bitcoin halving? 🤔

Can this year get any better? LFG ✌️ pic.twitter.com/22C0UcV1uu

— Crypto Rand (@crypto_rand) January 11, 2024

Still, the Securities and Exchange Commission may prove a formidable obstacle to such approvals. Chair Gary Gensler said yesterday that the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs should ”in no way signal the Commission’s willingness to approve listing standards for crypto asset securities.”

And Gensler has said previously that he considers all cryptocurrencies except Bitcoin to be securities. There may be hope though because in a 2018 speech the regulator’s former director of corporate finance William Hinman said that, given its decentralized nature, Ether may not be a financial security.

The next deadline for an SEC decision on spot Ether ETFs is May 23.