Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas reduced his estimate of the likelihood of the SEC approving a spot ETH ETF in May to 35%, down from as high as 70% in January.  

“Our odds of ETH ETF approval by [the] May deadline are down to 35%. I get all the reasons they SHOULD approve it (and we personally believe they should) but all the signs/sources that were making us bullish 2.5 [months] out for BTC spot are not there this time,” Balchunas wrote on X on Monday morning. He stressed, however, that 35% is not 0%, and he still thinks an approval will occur in the long term.

Balchunas’ most recent estimate is a decrease even from last week when he stated on the Unchained podcast that the chance of the SEC approving a spot ether ETF in May stood at 50%.

Others Weigh In

James Seyffart, another Bloomberg ETF analyst, also noted on X on Monday that there was “little to no movement” from relevant actors about 73 days before the May 23 deadline for the SEC to make a final decision on the first of the applications for a spot ETH ETF. 

“This #Ethereum ETF cycle feels like the opposite of #Bitcoin ETF approval odds at the moment. The more we see/hear (and don’t see/hear) the less optimistic I become,” Seyffart added. 

Jake Chervinsky, the chief legal officer of Variant Fund, a crypto venture capital firm, expressed similar pessimism about the likelihood of a spot ETH ETF approval in May. According to Chervinsky, the SEC “appears to be making little effort to work on the details necessary for approval and listing,” and seems to be “willing to take litigation risk and lose in court based on a preference for being viewed as ‘fighters’ in a war against crypto.” 

“The general sentiment in this early-mid bull market is overestimating the chance of approval given all the political and strategic factors weighing against… The good news is that we’ll likely get more signal about which direction the SEC is leaning over the coming weeks,” Chervinsky wrote on X. 

ETH, the native cryptocurrency for the Ethereum blockchain, has risen 3.3% in the past 24 hours to trade above $4,000, a price level not seen since late 2021, data from CoinGecko shows.