While the relatively speedy approval of Ethereum ETFs this week caught some by surprise, investment bank TD Cowen's research group saw the approval as inevitable following the approval of Bitcoin ETFs earlier this year. 

"This comes about six months faster than we expected...yet this decision was also inevitable once the SEC approved crypto futures ETFs," Jaret Seiberg from TD Cowen's Washington Research Group wrote in a note on Thursday. Next to come within a year might be an offering with a "basket of crypto tokens," possibly just Bitcoin and ether but possibly more, Seiberg continued. 

However, the approval doesn't signal an overall change to the SEC's overall posture towards crypto, as crypto-critical chair of the Commission Gary Gensler issued a "highly critical" …