JPMorgan expressed doubts about the approval of spot Ethereum Spot ETFs by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in May.
Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou from the bank shared his views with The Block, stating that there is less than a 50% chance that the SEC will classify Ethereum as a commodity before May.
According to the bank, the SEC's approval of spot Ethereum ETFs would require it to classify Ethereum as a commodity similar to Bitcoin rather than a security. Panigirtzoglou notes that this classification is far from definitive.
This comes after the SEC approved spot Bitcoin ETFs after more than a decade of rejections. The approval has led investors to speculate that spot Ethereum ETFs could receive the next green light, especially as the price of ETH is up nearly 20% in the last seven days, while Bitcoin is up 2.5% in the same period.
However, Panigirtzoglou pointed out that the SEC continues to view all other cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin as securities. Last year, JPMorgan suggested that US authorities could potentially classify ETH under a new “other category” to avoid classifying it as a security.
SEC Chairman Gary Gensler reiterated last year that tokens that use staking protocols, such as Ethereum's ETH token, could be considered securities under U.S. law. Gensler declined to confirm whether ETH was a security during a nearly five-hour session with lawmakers. Additionally, while Gensler approved spot Bitcoin ETFs earlier this week, he noted that this decision should not be interpreted as a desire for the SEC to approve listing standards for crypto asset securities.
Despite JPMorgan's cautious stance, some analysts, including Bloomberg Intelligence's James Seyffart, expressed more optimism about the approval of spot ETH ETFs.
*This is not investment advice.