The US stock market regulator has not yet announced an official position on the status of BTC and ETH. The SEC Senior Legal Counsel did not rule out that ether can still be classified as a security.
During a recent conference with Justice of the Peace Sarah Netburn, SEC Senior Counsel Dugan Bliss noted that the regulator has yet to make any official statements regarding the status of the largest cryptocurrencies.
“I want to make it clear that this is my understanding of the current situation. I don’t want to be too picky, but the Securities and Exchange Commission itself, in my understanding, did not take an official position. No action has been taken to claim that Bitcoin and Ether are not securities, ”Bliss said.
Former SEC chairman Jay Clayton has repeatedly stated that bitcoin is not a security. However, in a letter to the Cipher Technologies Bitcoin Fund in October 2019, the SEC rejected an application to register an investment company on the grounds (among other things) that Bitcoin is a security.
Ether was less often mentioned by representatives of the regulator in this vein. However, in 2019, Jay Clayton said that ether and similar cryptocurrencies could lose their status as securities over time. In June 2018, the head of the corporate finance division of the SEC, William Hinman, also stated that the decentralized structure of the Ethereum network does not allow for the proper application of securities laws to cryptocurrency.
At the same time, Bliss argues that Hinman’s opinion does not necessarily reflect the regulator’s views on the status of ETH:
“A senior SEC official made a speech in which he expressed his opinion. However, there were no official letters or any actions that would make it possible to say with confidence what position the SEC takes on this issue. ”
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce recently warned that non-fungible tokens (NFTs) may in some cases be considered securities.
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