Joseph Lubin (one of the co-founders of Ethereum) said that it is clear that Ether (ETH) is a commodity and not a security.
Some regulators in the US, including the SEC, have been somewhat unsure about the status of the coin.
There is no doubt that it is a commodity
in a recent interview To Bloomberg, Lubin said it is a “foregone conclusion” that ETH should be classified as a commodity, or in other words, treated like gold, oil, natural gas, and other items. He also recalled that various watchdogs have stated that the token should not be considered a security.
“The regulators have spoken. The SEC has spoken. Bill Hinman gave a speech, I think it was in the middle of 2018. It was revealed that I think 18 of his SEC colleagues worked with him on the speech, so the SEC actually spoke. The CFTC has said very clearly multiple times that it views ETH as a commodity and not as a security.”
He said that there are still some regulators who have not recognized the “fact” that the coin should join the commodity list. “I don’t know why that’s the case and ultimately it just doesn’t matter,” she added.
It is worth noting that the positions displayed by the CFTC and the SEC over the years have been highly controversial. The president of the former, Rostin Behnam, He suggested in October 2022 that BTC and ETH are commodities, not securities.
However, he changed his vision a few months later, keeping that the only digital asset that could be categorized as a commodity is Bitcoin.
Gary Gensler’s position
SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has been even more hesitant on the matter. A recently released video dating from 2018 showed him describing various cryptocurrencies, including BTC and ETH, as “non-values.”
However, a few years later, he reclaimed the only digital asset that could be seen as a commodity is Bitcoin, refusing to comment on the status of other tokens.
Executioner avoided a straightforward explanation when asked by the House Financial Services Committee in April of this year whether the SEC considers ETH to be a security or a commodity. Instead, he gave imprecise answers without specifying in detail.
The US regulator recently archived lawsuits against two of the heavyweights of the crypto industry: Binance and Coinbase. It claimed that it offered trading services with unregistered securities, including BNB, BUSD, SOL, MATIC, ADA, and others. Interestingly, the Commission did not include ETH on that list.
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