Gary Gensler, Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), made a series of comments related to the cryptocurrency market today on CNBC. Regarding the recently approved Ethereum spot ETF, Gensler stated that the next step of approval (the S-1 filing) will take some time. Fox reporter Eleanor Terrett suggested that this implies a potential slow process for the S-1 approval, indicating that the Ethereum spot ETF may take longer to be listed for trading. However, this could also be seen as a positive sign that the SEC is still progressing with the S-1 filing, rather than outright rejecting it.
In addition, Alexander Grieve, Public Policy Lead at venture capital firm Paradigm, pointed out that Gensler had revised his previous stance during the interview, shifting from “all tokens are securities” to “tokens lack proper disclosure.” This seems to indicate a softening of Gensler’s tough stance on cryptocurrencies.
When discussing the cryptocurrency market, Gensler also mentioned that traditional financial exchanges are regulated to act as intermediaries and not as counterparties to investors, while cryptocurrency exchanges are doing things that New York Stock Exchange or traditional exchanges are never allowed to do.
