Vitalik Buterin, Co-founder of Ethereum [ETH], spoke about the recent ‘Ethereum is not a security’ controversy, during the Unchained Live event with Laura Shin.
Earlier this week, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman, Jay Clayton, stated in a letter to Coin Center that he agreed with the statements made by William Hinman, the Former Director of Corporate Finance – SEC. The statement he agreed to was that, a token offered for sale could be initially be a security, but its designation could change over time if it did not meet the definition of the investment contract or the Howey framework.
Interestingly, Hinman had used Ethereum’s token, Ether, as an example for this explanation during his speech. Hinman had said, “The present state of Ether, the Ethereum network and its decentralized structure, current offers and sales of Ether,” are not classified as securities transactions. This remark disregarded the fundraising aspect to the creation of Ether.
During the event, Laura Shin stated that based on the SEC’s remarks, it was likely that the crowd sale of Ethereum would be considered a violation of securities laws. This was followed by Shin asking Vitalik Buterin if he was “worried about an enforcement action” against him, and the other co-founders.
To this, Buterin replied,
“It’s something, so far, we haven’t like seen anything suggesting it is, anything like that happening. I mean we definitely have like our lawyers and legal teams and they’re definitely are watching the situation closely but so far we haven’t seen any reason to be worried for ourselves”
Following this, Shin asked Vitalik Buterin whether this was something he would stress about. Buterin responded, “I would say, no. And, probably what mainly listening to our lawyers and legal teams at this point.”
The post appeared first on .
Published at Fri, 22 Mar 2019 10:09:22 +0000
