While the May 23rd spot Ethereum ETF approval deadline is on the agenda, we see that this is not unfounded. The expert comments that demoralized investors were probably linked to the bad news that came in the last hour. Having taken action against the Ethereum Foundation, the SEC will now take on one of the biggest Ethereum backers.
Ethereum and SEC Battle
We recently reported that Consensys had filed a lawsuit against the SEC. Gensler and his team also showed their intention to sue the company by seeing the Wells Notice. Arguing that MetaMask's swap and staking features were unauthorized, the regulator targeted the largest cryptocurrency wallet it could target. Indeed, since the end of 2022, we have been following the SEC Enforcement Chief's comments that "cryptocurrency companies will either come and register with us" or "die".
The only problem is that there is no way to register with the SEC. This is not coming from biased crypto company spokespeople, investors or untrustworthy people, this is coming from 2 out of 5 SEC members (Peirce and Uyeda).
Legal battles in crypto are growing
In recent weeks, the SEC has requested documents from companies, developers, and others regarding their relationship with the Ethereum Foundation. Gensler will take the paperwork, which comes with 100 years of securities rules that he deems existing and sufficient, and find excuses to sue them all. Ethereum futures were launched with agency approval after senior SEC officials described Ethereum as decentralized.
In 2018, before Gensler took office, he said Ethereum was a security, a video of which is still available. So how can the SEC Chairman wage war on Ethereum despite all this? Thanks to Merge, of course. After the PoS transition, Gensler started to imply that the native token of the largest smart contract platform was a security. And then we are where we are today.
Joe Lubin, founder of Consensys, said;
"The act of staking is meant to contribute to Ethereum network security. But the SEC is trying to turn it into an investment contract."
Lubin says that following the recent spot Bitcoin ETF approval, the agency is laying the groundwork for not granting the same approvals for Ether. According to him, the SEC has moved to prove its point and is doing its best to undermine the growth of crypto.
