Valkyrie CIO Predicts Ripple ETF Approval Ahead of Ethereum [Dugguru=Sung-Hwan Hong] It has been observed that a Ripple (XRP) spot exchange traded fund (ETF) is likely to be approved before an Ethereum (ETH) spot ETF. It will be interesting to see if global managers will start to launch Ripple spot ETFs. "I don't think an Ethereum spot ETF will be approved in May because I believe that Ethereum can be a security," said Stephen McClurg, co-founder and chief investment officer of Valkyrie Investments, in a conversation with a reporter from U.S. financial media Fox Business, according to industry sources. "I think it's more likely that Ripple or Litecoin (LTC) will be approved before Ethereum." However, no manager has yet formalized the launch of a Ripple or Litecoin spot ETF. Seven asset managers, including BlackRock, Fidelity, Ark Investments, and Grayscale, have filed to list an Ethereum spot ETF. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is expected to make a decision on May 23 on whether to approve ETH spot ETFs. The market is betting that an ETH spot ETF is unlikely to be approved. This is because unlike Bitcoin, which is proof-of-mining (POW), Ethereum is proof-of-stake (POS), which raises ongoing securities issues. Eric Balchunas, an ETF analyst at Bloomberg, previously put the likelihood of an ETH spot ETF approval at 70% in January, but recently downgraded it to 30%. "The approval process for an ETH spot ETF is different from that for a bitcoin spot ETF," he explained, "and we've lowered our odds of approval given the lack of progress with more than 70 days to go before the deadline."
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