The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has seen Ethereum as a security for at least a year for a long time. The news came out in a report that hasn’t changed that a company called Consensys, which makes software for Ethereum, sent to the regulatory body.
FOX Business reported that the lawsuit provides more information about how the SEC is investigating Ethereum 2.0. The agency began its investigations in 2018 because it thinks Ethereum could be used for securities sales and offerings.
Ethereum’s SEC stance prompts action.
Consensys’s case shows that the SEC has been asking for many documents over the past year. They want to know everything about Consensys’s role in the proof-of-stake (PoS) update of ETH and its purchases, holdings, and sales of ETH. Notably, records show that the SEC might have seen sales of ETH that happened before the 2018 merger as deals in securities.
The SEC’s view on ETH as an asset differs from what it said before Jay Clayton was Chair. It’s important to note that in June 2018, Bill Hinman, the SEC’s then-Chief Financial Officer, made the SEC’s stance public, saying that ETH and Bitcoin were not securities.
Chairman Gary Gensler’s recent testimony before the SEC made the cryptocurrency business even less sure about Ethereum’s regulatory status. Concerns were raised when he wouldn’t give a clear description, especially since there was talk that Ethereum’s move to the Merge has made it more like a security because it has changed how its consensus works.
In reaction to what it sees as regulatory threats, Consensys has taken legal action against the SEC to stop regulators from monitoring the Ethereum blockchain. This action comes after a Wells warning from April 10 that the SEC was going to take action against Consensys over its MetaMask wallet services. The company Consensys has clarified that MetaMask is not a dealer and does not store or facilitate transactions for its clients.
