Michael Saylor, a Bitcoin bull, is notorious for not caring much about altcoins like Ripple (XRP) and Ethereum (ETH). Saylor discussed the classification of those cryptocurrencies as securities in a recent podcast.
As part of his argument that Ripple Labs is unregistered security, Saylor spoke about the legal battle between Ripple Labs and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
“This is pretty evident,” the MicroStrategy CEO said, adding, “It’s a company. It owns a ton of it. The company sells it to the public, but the company doesn’t disclose.”
The Reason Ethereum (ETH) And Ripple (XRP) Are Securities
In terms of Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, he shared the same opinion. In Saylor’s opinion, ETH is an unregistered security since “it’s controlled by a few people – the Ethereum Foundation and ConsenSys.”
In further explanation, MicroStrategy CEO explained that the SEC should enforce securities laws on altcoins:
Even though Bitcoin is an ethical commodity, altcoins are simply equity tokens issued by companies to avoid IPOs. In addition, they are committing securities fraud, said Saylor.
Withdrawals from the ETH 2.0 deposit contract are still not possible, according to Bitcoinist, despite the timeline being pushed back several times. Redemptions are currently scheduled for the Shanghai update, which will be the next major update following the merge. The fork is currently scheduled to take place in March 2023.
Saylor criticized the fact that a small group of people decides whether and when redemptions from the deposit contract are permitted.
If a crypto asset is supposed to be a commodity, the CEO of MicroStrategy stated that you cannot rely on a few engineers, a company, or a CEO.
In its SEC litigation, Ripple is attempting to challenge the application of that definition to XRP. The fair notice warning and the common enterprise argument are two of the most promising Ripple arguments.
The CFTC and the SEC both hint at tighter regulation.
Surprisingly, Saylor only recently shared a Fortune report on the CME Group’s assessment. Chairman Rostin Behnam stated at a recent event that Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency
In doing so, the Behnam-led agency reversed its previous assessments in which it referred to ETH as a commodity. Just one month before, Behnam delivered a speech for the Rutgers Center for Corporate Law and Governance in which he took the opposite stance.
Michael Saylor’s viewpoint is also consistent with Gary Gensler’s recent remarks. According to the SEC Chairman, Ethereum’s proof of stake could lead to the token being classified as a security.
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