Ex-head of CFTC: Ethereum and Ripple could become prohibited in America

“There is a strong case for both of them — but particularly Ripple — that they are noncompliant securities,” Gary Gensler stated in a speech and later, on Sunday 22 April, the news has reached one the oldest American periodicals.

The press has also described his career: he has come a long way from the leadership over one of the fiat economy regulation agency to the MIT where he is now researching blockchain technologies. Notably, Gary Gensler has also been the CFO of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, one might speculate he would have continued his career in politics if she won.

In response, Ripple Labs has stated that it did not pay out dividends or gave any share of business to clients, which means that Ripple is not a security. In addition, the company has tried to distance itself from the cryptocurrency they view decentralized. Ripple already knows about the regulators’ stance about XRP tokens, as this was a major reason why Coinbase didn’t list this cryptocurrency after all the talks.

The Ethereum Foundation has declared that they were not in control of Ethereum reserves or means of emission. The representatives of this organization have reminded about their 1% share of all ether which currently exists, pointing out that other projects control much more funds in percentage.

While the ex-head of CFTC is suspicious about ETH and XRP, he offers not to view Bitcoin as a security, likely due to its legendary status. When it comes to ICOs, Gary Gensler thinks that 2018 would be a moment of truth for many such enterprises because they will have to comply with securities laws.

Despite this, the U.S. SEC head has recently told that not all tokens are securities, sometimes they may be created simply for utility purposes and such cases should be carefully reviewed.

Image courtesy of AP