Original | Odaily Planet Daily

Author | Nanzhi

Latest News at a Glance

BTC spot ETF route repeated?

This morning, Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart posted on the X platform: "Five potential Ethereum spot ETF issuers have submitted 19 b-4 revised documents to the US SEC through Cboe BZX, including: Fidelity, VanEck, Invesco/Galaxy, Ark/21 Shares and Franklin." The DTCC official website has also listed the VanEck spot Ethereum ETF "VANECK ETHEREUM TR SHS" (code ETHV).

On the other hand, as the SEC's expectations for the Ethereum spot ETF have increased, the negative premium rate of Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) has narrowed to 11.82%. According to relevant sources, Grayscale has submitted an update to the 19b-4 form of the Ethereum Mini Trust to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, confirming that its Ethereum Mini Trust will not directly or indirectly participate in ETH staking.

In a previous filing, Grayscale had proposed to investors that Ethereum could be pledged through the trust fund, but this wording was not included in the revised preliminary proxy statement filed by Grayscale on Tuesday. Other issuers, including Fidelity, have also taken similar measures (removing the pledge-related content).

Yesterday, according to source @tier 10 k on the X platform, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has informed exchanges that they are inclined to approve a spot Ethereum ETF.

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officials unexpectedly asked Nasdaq and the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) on Monday to quickly update and revise their spot Ethereum ETF listing documents, which is usually a request before approval, suggesting that the agency may be ready to approve the two companies' applications, three people familiar with the matter said. The SEC must decide by the end of this week whether to approve the VanEck and ARK Investments/21 Shares ETF listing applications submitted by CBOE. The exchanges need the SEC to approve their revised rules before they can list the products, while the issuers still need the SEC to approve the ETF registration statement before trading can begin. Unlike the documents submitted by the exchanges, the SEC has no definite time frame for the decision, which means that it may take several months for the spot Ethereum ETF to begin trading.

Ethereum attributes remain a key issue

According to many relevant people, the classification of Ethereum as a commodity or security is still unresolved. Therefore, we can see in the previous section that the ETFs in various applications have actively sought changes to remove the clauses related to the characteristics of Ethereum securities. Some of the views are as follows:

Scott Johnsson, partner at Van Buren Capital and financial lawyer, said the relevant application documents show that the Ethereum spot ETF will still be listed under the "commodity-based trust share" rules.

Jake Chervinsky, chief legal officer of Variant Fund, said that this means that if the US SEC approves the Ethereum spot ETF, it will have to admit that non-pledged ETH is not a security. This will be a major policy move by the SEC, which has previously refused to recognize any assets other than Bitcoin as non-securities.

Adam Cochran, founder of Cinneamhain Ventures, said that the continued lack of clarity in the regulation of Ethereum by Gary Gensler, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the SEC's unstable and ambiguous stance on the classification of Ethereum could hinder innovation in the cryptocurrency space and create great uncertainty. It is worth noting that Ethereum is currently under investigation by the U.S. SEC to determine whether it should be classified as a security.

The election is the main factor in the change of regulatory attitude

Dragonfly partner Haseeb Qureshi said that the change in regulatory attitude towards the Ethereum ETF indicates that the Biden administration is softening its crypto policy because they do not want to lose votes in the election competition because of trivial matters (referring to crypto regulatory issues) that are innocuous to them.

Qureshi added: “The market will see other regulators shift their attitudes in the coming months. Note that this is not a complete reversal. Just a reduction in differences. Trump will definitely be more supportive of cryptocurrencies, but Biden will soften enough not to completely lose the crypto vote.”

Market outlook

Standard Chartered Bank: If approved, ETH will rise to $8,000 by the end of the year

Standard Chartered Bank expects the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to approve the Ethereum ETF this week. Geoff Kendrick, head of foreign exchange research and digital asset research at Standard Chartered Bank, said that if the Ethereum spot ETF is approved, it is expected that there will be an inflow of 2.39 million to 9.15 million ETH in the first 12 months, equivalent to about US$15 billion to US$45 billion in US dollar terms.

“This is similar to our estimates of inflows into Bitcoin ETFs based on market cap, and those estimates are proving to be accurate,” Kendrick said.

Additionally, if the Ethereum ETF is approved this week, Ethereum is expected to maintain its price parity with Bitcoin and Ethereum will reach $8,000 by the end of 2024.

“Given that we now expect Bitcoin to reach the $150,000 level by the end of 2024, this would imply an Ethereum price of $8,000,” Kendrick said.

Su Zhu: Target price: $5,400

Su Zhu posted on the X platform that the price of ETH has started to rise. He mentioned before that if the Ethereum spot ETF is really approved, then ETH will rise by 80% from US$3,000 to US$5,400, and BTC will rise to US$80,000 (the ETH/BTC exchange rate will reach 0.0675), which will also be a new high for the price of ETH.

Kryptanium Capital founder: If approved, the best strategy is to buy SOL/ETH

Daniel Yan, founder of Kryptanium Capital, said that if the Ethereum ETF is approved within two days, the best trading strategy is to "buy SOL/ETH". The reasons are as follows: ETH has risen nearly 20% in the past 24 hours; SOL will be the next beneficiary after the approval of the ETH ETF; ETH/BTC rose 12% in a week after the approval of the BTC spot ETF because people are looking forward to the ETH ETF (approval); the strategy has low market participation and is not a hot trade.

He also reminded that BTC prices fell 15% in the weeks following the spot ETF’s approval on January 10.

QCP Capital: The price will fluctuate by $1,000 depending on the approval process

QCP Capital said in a statement that regarding rumors that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) may approve (Ethereum spot ETF), QCP Capital's view is that Ethereum spot prices are unlikely to stabilize here; if the spot ETF is approved, Ethereum prices will be closer to the short-term target of $4,000, or $5,000 later this year; if it is not approved, Ethereum prices will fall back to $3,000. This uncertainty leads to higher volatility, but the better trade may be the spot futures basis, which now yields more than 10% again.