JPMorgan Casts Doubt...

JPMorgan Casts Doubt on Future Crypto ETFs Without Clear US Regulatory Guidelines, Despite Ethereum ETFs

By Jody McDonald May 28, 2024 In Banks, Cryptocurrency, ETFs, Ethereum, JPMorgan, SEC

Investment bank J.P. Morgan believes ETFs based on cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin and Ethereum are unlikely to be approved unless there are big changes to how the SEC determines their security status.
Not all analysts agree though, with some saying they believe XRP and Solana ETFs could be approved some time in 2025.

According to finance firm J.P. Morgan, there’s not going to be an avalanche of crypto ETFs in the wake of the Ethereum spot ETF approvals last week.

Speaking to The Block, J.P. Morgan’s managing director and global market strategist, Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, said he thinks it’s unlikely we’ll see approvals of ETFs based on Solana and other cryptocurrencies in the short term—unless there are significant changes to the way the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) determines which cryptocurrencies are securities.

SEC Says Most Cryptocurrencies Are Securities, Making ETFs Unlikely

Panigirtzoglou said that with the SEC’s approval of the Ethereum spot ETFs the regulator was probably already pushing the envelope in terms of what it’s comfortable with:

The decision by the SEC to approve ETH ETFs is already stretched given the ambiguity about whether Ethereum should be classified as security or not.

Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, J.P. Morgan, Managing director

Given the SEC’s opinion that tokens other than Bitcoin and Ethereum are very likely securities, Panigirtzoglou said approval of ETFs based on these assets is unlikely:

We don’t think the SEC would go even further by approving Solana or other token ETFs given the SEC has stronger (relative to Ethereum) opinion that tokens outside bitcoin and Ethereum should be classified as securities.

Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, J.P. Morgan, Managing director

J.P. Morgan Views At Odds With Other Banks

Not all crypto market watchers agree with Panigirtzoglou though.

Standard Chartered Bank’s analyst Geoffrey Kendrick last week predicted we’d see Solana and XRP based ETFs some time in 2025, saying, “For other coins (eg. Solana and XRP) markets will look ahead to their eventual ETF status as well, albeit this is likely a 2025 story not a 2024 one.”

The analyst added “In several cases the core technology is so similar to ETH it would be difficult for the SEC to claim they were securities given the ETH position.”

Similarly, Jaret Seiberg from investment bank TD Cowen, wrote in a note to clients last week that the next thing he expects to see approved is an ETF made up of a “basket of crypto tokens”, possibly including tokens beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum.