Gary Gensler has the hots for Ethereum (here's why that's a bad thing)
He's making headlines again!
GiGi, Gazzy Gains, the G-Man himself...
(That's Gary Gensler, the SEC chief).
This time it's (semi?) positive news for the Web3 and crypto space. Here's the good, the (possibly) bad, and the ugly parts of his recent comments:
The good & the bad: Mr. G stressed that should Congress give the CFTC prime oversight over crypto, his own federal agency shouldn’t be overlooked.
CFTC oversight is less restrictive than that of the SEC, which would be better for the growth of the industry.
This statement indicates that Congress may well be giving real consideration to the CFTC running the show, or at least most of it.
That's the good bit, the bad part is this:
Gary is still pushing for his agency to be involved (which is no surprise), the big question is which tokens does he want to target?
...which brings us to.
The ugly: split oversight will accelerate some parts of the crypto industry (CFTC gang), while slowing others (SEC crew).
For example, Gary has been relatively tight lipped about his thoughts on Ethereum of late...
Back in 2018 the SEC said ETH isn't a security (meaning they shouldn't have oversight on it), but many believe he's trying to find a way to take that statement back.
Right now, Ethereum is in many ways 'the operating system of Web3' (or at least the most dominant one...by a mile). If it were to be heavily regulated, it would slow development significantly.
The good news is, it looks like the SEC are yet to find a credible way to rescind those 2018 statements.
So, hooooray! (For now).