Today, Ethereum is experiencing a significant gain, increasing by over 2.30% to reach 2370 USD following the Standard Chartered Bank report. Bank has projected a positive outlook for Ethereum, especially in relation to the upcoming decision by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding spot Ethereum Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs). The bank anticipates that the SEC, following its approach with spot Bitcoin ETFs, will approve spot Ethereum ETFs on the initial final deadline of May 23. Geoffrey Kendrick, head of forex and digital assets research at Standard Chartered, suggests that if Ethereum's price trajectory follows that of Bitcoin's prior to its ETF approval, ETH could potentially reach as high as $4,000. Kendrick's prediction is bolstered by the fact that the SEC has not classified ether as a security in its legal actions against crypto companies, and the listing of ETH as a regulated futures contract on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange further supports this expectation.
Additionally, Ethereum is preparing for its most significant upgrade in a year, known as Dencun. Developers have confirmed they will be testing the upgrade on the Sepolia and Holesky testnets on January 30 and February 7, respectively. This puts the Dencun upgrade on track for deployment on the main network in late February or early March. The Dencun upgrade, a major "hard fork" for Ethereum, is set to enable "proto-danksharding," a technical feature that will reduce transaction costs on layer 2s and provide cheaper data availability on the blockchain.
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Source: xStation 5
