• Ethereum has marked a new all-time high after climbing above $4,600 and is now set to reach a much-coveted $5,000 position in the short term.
• Bloomberg Intelligence analysts predict that the market is likely to welcome its first Ethereum futures ETF in Q1 2022.

Ethereum (ETH) continues to impress and outperform a majority of coins including Bitcoin (BTC). In the latest price move, the second-largest cryptocurrency has climbed above $4,600 and has successfully set a new all-time high. This comes amidst strong suggestions that an Ethereum futures ETF is likely to be approved by the SEC in the first quarter of 2022. This prediction was made by analysts from Bloomberg Intelligence.

Related: Is Ethereum (ETH) massively undervalued? This market analyst thinks it will hit $10K and gives reasons

At the time of press, Ethereum is exchanging for $4,500 according to our data. This follows a pullback from the all-time high set in the last 24 hours. With a market cap of nearly $550 billion, the second-largest cryptocurrency is around half of Bitcoin’s $1.1 trillion market cap. However, Ethereum’s cap is four times larger than Binance coin (BNB) which is under $100 million. This shows how superior Ethereum has performed in the last couple of months and years. In fact, some analysts have gone as far as suggesting that ETH will flip Bitcoin in the long run.

Ethereum futures ETFs coming next year

One major development that could offer ETH a leg up is the approval of an Ethereum ETF. So far it has looked inevitable that the SEC will approve an Ethereum futures ETF since approving a Bitcoin futures ETF a few weeks ago. Two funds tracking Bitcoin futures were approved and the first, ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF, accumulated more than $1 billion in assets in just a few days of its launch.

With an Ethereum futures ETF approval, the excitement might not be quite as high as with Bitcoin but it could be enough to see ETH record astronomical gains in a short period.

Speaking of a possible Ethereum ETF approval, Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder of crypto exchange FTX, told Bloomberg TV;

Ethereum may be, I don’t know, but it might be up on speculation that there might be an Ethereum futures-based ETF as well — that would not be a surprising development,

James Seyffart, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, wrote in a note Tuesday about the possibility of a spot Bitcoin ETF coming early next year. A much more superior product, a spot Bitcoin ETF is highly anticipated by investors and is set to trigger greater excitement. The analyst wrote;

Most market participants agree that a spot Bitcoin ETF would be superior to existing futures ETFs, yet SEC approval of the former may be delayed until late 2022 or beyond,

Seyffart further estimates that an Ethereum futures ETF could be approved as soon as the first quarter of the coming year.