In the SEC’s push to rein in the crypto sector, one question looms large: Is ETH a security? Dan Berkovitz, a former CFTC commissioner and SEC general counsel, and Colin Lloyd, a partner at law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, assess the current state of the regulatory turf war in the U.S., shedding light on some of Washington’s unanswered questions.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Show highlights:
- how an asset can be both a commodity and a security
- what it means that bitcoin and ether were listed as non-security futures
- whether The Merge may have changed regulators’ views on the classification of ETH
- who would be responsible for determining that ETH is a security
- what Colin and Dan say about ETH being a security or not
- what would happen if any regulator, be it the CFTC or SEC, determined that ETH is a security
- how and whether DeFi applications should be regulated
- why it is important to consider the “human initiative” behind DeFi platforms
- the implications of having a technology that allows for the sale of securities without an intermediary
- the implications of the SEC’s proposal to change the definition of an exchange
- how new technologies were integrated with the regulatory system in the past and how that differs from the current approach of the SEC
- the problems of trying to regulate a technology that’s changing so fast
- how other jurisdictions have been taking a more proactive approach to regulating digital assets
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Guests:
Previous coverage of Unchained on crypto regulation:
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