Standard Chartered — the financial giant with over $800 billion worth of assets under management — said they expect the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to approve spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) later this week.

The first round of deadlines for spot Ether (ETH) ETFs is rapidly approaching. The final deadline for the VanEck ETF filing is on May 23, followed by ARK Invest/21Shares' deadline on May 24.

The financial giant has changed its tune regarding approval of the spot Ether ETF within a month of claiming that the May approval deadline is unlikely. 

Standard Chartered’s head of FX and digital assets research, Geoff Kendrick, said they are “80% to 90%” certain that the SEC will approve the Ether ETFs later this week.

Kendrick shared expected market inflows into the spot ETH ETF, claiming it could rise to 2.39-9.15 million Ether in the first year of approval or about $15 billion to $45 billion.

He noted that the estimates are similar to their spot Bitcoin ETF estimates. He added that based on Bitcoin price predictions of $150,000 due to the ETF inflows, they expect ETH to grow similarly and reach about $8,000 by the end of this cycle.

Related: Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein steps down

Many market pundits’ recent change came after the SEC abruptly asked aspiring Ether exchange-traded fund exchanges to update their 19b-4 filings ahead of a deadline this week. Due to the ongoing security debate, this has drastically changed the views of market pundits, who were almost certain about the ETH ETF rejection.

Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, who had lowered the expected chance of approval to 25%, has now increased it to 75% in the run-up to the final deadline. Fidelity has already filed an amended proposal after the SEC’s request, declaring that the ETH under their management for the ETF won’t be staked.

Amid all the growing odds in favor of the ETH ETF, the speculation market has helped the second-largest cryptocurrency rise in double digits and reach a new multi-week high of over $3,800.

Magazine: Trader turns $3K into $46M in PEPE, Ethereum gas overhaul, Tornado dev guilty: Hodler’s Digest, May 12-18