Ethereum (ETH) has experienced a notable surge surpassing the $3,700 mark recently. With a market capitalization of $444 billion, ETH has witnessed impressive growth of 61% since the beginning of the year. 

In the last 24 hours, Ethereum showed a swift price surge, surpassing Bitcoin’s 7-day metrics. The ETH price increase is attributed to the growing speculation circling the potential approval of the spot ETH ETFs. This significant development has captured the interest of crypto investors. 

Reports indicate that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been cautious in approving ETFs tied to cryptocurrencies. The SEC states that most tokens could potentially be classified as unregistered securities. While Bitcoin has been excluded from this categorization, Ethereum has been explicitly identified as an unregistered security which could present challenges for launching the ETH ETFs.

Furthermore, Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analysts have suggested a 75% likelihood that the SEC will reject the spot Ethereum ETF applications in May. This is due to weak correlations between spot and futures markets as a significant factor influencing the SEC’s decision-making process.

Meanwhile, recent analytics from Santiment indicate that Ethereum is surpassing many competitors in the crypto market, especially with ERC20 tokens demonstrating strong performance.

Over the past week, altcoins such as TON, LDO, and ENA have recorded a remarkable average increase of 8.1%. In addition, ERC20-based NFTs have regained attention after a period of dormancy, although concerns about network congestion and high transaction fees persist alongside Ethereum’s growth potential. 

At press time, Ethereum’s price is now up by 8.50% in the last seven days and currently trading at $3,632.42. Its 24-hour trading volume is currently at $19.66 billion while its market cap stands at around $436.87 billion.