Author: Brayden Lindrea, CoinTelegraph; Compiler: Baishui, Golden Finance
Industry experts say that approval of a spot Ethereum (ETH) exchange-traded fund is an “implicit admission” by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that Ethereum is not a security.
Some even suggested this could be extended to other tokens as well.
Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart noted in a discussion with Ryan Sean Adams on the Bankless podcast: “These are commodity-based trust assets, so by approving them, the SEC is making it clear that they are not treating Ethereum as a security.”
Digital asset attorney Justin Browder believes that if Ethereum ETFs receive S-1 approval (the final step required for them to begin trading), then “the debate is over: Ethereum is not a security.”
Source: TuongVy Le
Adam Cochran, partner at venture capital firm Cinneamhain Ventures, went a step further and believed that this idea could be extended to tokens of other projects.
“ETH is a commodity, even with its current properties. That means we can infer to “a lot” of other projects what elements are essential to security. A lot of things may clearly be commodities today, even if they don’t know it yet.”
Source: Paul Grewal
However, Seyffart and others believe the SEC could continue to go after participants in ETH staking:
“[I think they’ll] try to thread the needle and say ETH itself, they wouldn’t call it a security, but staked ETH could be a security [...], I don’t believe they’re going to do that anytime soon.”
Digital asset attorney Joe Carlasare agreed with Seyffart.
“Even if an ETF launches, the SEC could go after individual participants and staking as a service.I think other actions are less likely,” Carlasare noted.
In April, Ethereum infrastructure company Consensys received a Wells Notice from the SEC, which focused on Metamask’s trading and staking services.
Source: James Murphy
Financial lawyer Scott Johnsson also pointed out that the SEC did not confirm Ethereum’s non-security status in its approval order, saying it “completely avoided” the issue.
However, the SEC and some of its commissioners are expected to make a formal statement in due course.
On May 23, the SEC formally approved the 19b-4 applications of VanEck, BlackRock, Fidelity, Grayscale, Franklin Templeton, ARK 21Shares, Invesco Galaxy and Bitwise to issue spot Ethereum ETFs. Many ETF issuers explicitly cancelled pledges in the final amendments.
Source: Tim Khoury
Hashdex was the only ETF issuer that did not receive regulatory approval that day.
However, the eight approved ETF issuers will need to wait until the SEC signs off on their S-1 registration statements before they can launch.
Dr. Zou Chuanwei shared from four parts: from tokenization to digital assets; two circulars from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission on the tokenization of securities and investment products; the progress of tokenization practice in Hong Kong; and conjectures about tokenization.
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