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.

 

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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:

Links

Read the episode transcript here