After the director of corporate finance of the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States (SEC), William Hinman, announced on Thursday June 14 that he will not classify ether (ETH) as a financial value, different experts spoke through of social networks, with opinions both for and against statements.
Attorney Peter Van Valkenburgh, Director of Research at the Coin Center Research Institute , noted that Hinman's statement is a rational interpretation of the laws, consistent with previous pronouncements. In his opinion, they are good news for decentralization.
Valkenburgh had published an article in the month of April, where he states that the ether should not be considered as a value , since there is no third party behind this cryptocurrency. After the SEC statement, Valkenburgh was pleased that the institution agreed to its analysis and told TheVerge.com that:
A very different point of view expressed in his blog Preston Byrne, member of the research intistuto Adam Smith, from the United Kingdom and student of the blockchain technology. Byrne wrote in his blog that it was not clear to him how, according to the SEC , tokens begin their life as investment contracts, and then lose that character by successfully evading compliance action for 4 years.
In his opinion, the decentralization subsequent to the fulfillment of the objectives of the Initial Currency Offer (ICO) should not save the cryptocurrency scheme from previous transgressions.
For his part, Marco Santori, President and Head of the Law Office of Blockchain, posted on his Twitter account that "although the announcement yesterday of the SEC was useful for the industry in general, it is, exceptionally, bad news for ) Custody service providers, b) Cryptocurrency exchange houses and c) OTC that currently trade with tokens. "
Santori pointed out that the SEC gave very clear guidelines about what it believes is a value , however, in the concept fit the vast majority of tokens that circulate today. As a result, cryptocurrency exchange houses, OTC operators and custody portfolios that deal with these tokens, must, first, register as national exchange houses or Alternative Exchange Systems. (ATS), and second, not accept unaccredited users, he explained.
For its part, investor Brian Kelly reported that the Cboe brokerage firm, which currently offers bitcoin futures , said that these comments remove the obstacles currently present for the ETH futures offering. However, it should be kept in mind that these Hinman statements were not made in an official statement and do not represent a reform of the United States Securities Law.