Bitcoin was declared a commodity but Ethereum falls into the gray area
Regulators have to make a decision on Ethereum. Is it a commodity, or a security?
That distinction will be a massive blow or boon to the $67 billion market cap of ether, according to a WSJ report today. Perhaps the most-damning evidence is the initial sale. The Ethereum Foundation netted 31,000 Bitcoin in the July 2014 launch, worth about $18.3 million at the time. Investors likely bought in anticipation of ETH rising, which is basically an illegal securities sale.
On the flipside, supporters argue that ether is mined like bitcoin so it's no controlled by any entity.
An even murkier case is Ripple and XRP. With ether, the Ethereum Foundation has just 1% of supply but Ripple Labs owns far more XRP and I would not be surprised if that's where the regulators hit first.
Anyone trading crypto right now needs to know that it's basically a bet on what regulators will do next.
