Despite skepticism from some crypto analysts and the wider crypto community regarding the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approval of Ether (ETH) spot ETFs, some analysts believe there could be surprises.

Crypto trader Matthew Hyland, in a May 17 post, addressed 142,000 followers on X with the statement: “If the SEC unexpectedly approves the Ethereum ETF, many will find themselves in a difficult situation.” He also noted: “If 90% of people think the Ethereum ETF will be denied approval, and most of them think it will cause the cryptocurrency to crash, then who will actually sell?” Hyland added that the expectation of failure is already built into the current price.

At the time of publication of this article, Ethereum (ETH) was trading at $3,102, according to data from CoinMarketCap. ETH is trading at $3,102, up 6.31% over the past seven days, CoinMarketCap reports. According to New York-based cryptocurrency forecasting platform

Polymarket, Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas pegged the chances of approval at 35%, while the broader crypto community pegs it at closer to 10%.

Coinbase institutional researcher David Hahn believes there is "room for surprises in this decision." “We estimate the probability of approval to be 30-40%,” Khan noted in Coinbase’s monthly forecast report published May 15.

He explained that as cryptocurrency becomes a more salient issue for voters ahead of the US presidential election in November, the SEC may be less likely to take a hard line on the waiver. “With cryptocurrency starting to become an election issue, we doubt the SEC is willing to put on the line the political capital needed to support a waiver,” Khan said.

Khan also added that even if the VanEck and ARK Invest ETF applications are rejected by the original May 23 deadline, the lawsuit could change that decision