The underwriting industry and its pipeline of marijuana stocks eager to go public on a major U.S. exchange are looking at a potential boon from President Joe Biden’s order to have the federal government review the drug’s legal status.

The review is the next step toward legalization of cannabis on the federal level, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Kenneth Shea wrote in a note. That development would transform pot stocks from thinly traded names into initial public offering candidates for major exchanges.

The AdvisorShares Pure US Cannabis ETF (ticker MSOS), whose holdings mostly trade over the counter, surged 34% on the day the White House announced the scheduling review, and although it has cut into those gains since then, the fund remains up 9.4% over that span compared with roughly 5% declines in the S&P 500 Index and small-cap Russell 2000.

“There’s not a lot of institutional buying and trading because they don’t want to be perceived as abetting the industry,” Shea said in an interview. “For companies that have sound business models and want to gain respect over time, they need to be uplisted to get the respect and liquidity they need.”

The U.S. midterm elections next month could provide the next key test for this path. Democrats remaining in control of Congress would increase the odds of progress toward legalization and a subsequent rush of equity capital markets activity, Shea said, while victories by the Republican party would have the opposite effect.

Of course, regardless of what happens in the election, the window for marijuana listings won’t open overnight. But progress on the path to public markets for pot producers and sellers already has some looking forward to what the next several years could deliver.

“With further clarification and setting of timelines we anticipate this to be a secular pivot in the cannabis industry rather than a one-time revaluation,” Nawan Butt, manager of the Medical Cannabis and Wellness UCITS ETF, said in an email. “There is potential to recognize a market opportunity of up to $80 billion in the U.S. alone and such action would send shockwaves throughout the western world.”