SEC Chair Gary Gensler Affirms That Only Bitcoin Is A Commodity

By Kevin • June 28, 2022 10:17 pm • Comments

SEC chair Gary Gensler just made a statement that caught the attention of the crypto community that would ultimately determine how Bitcoin would be treated in the future.

Essentially, Gensler affirmed that Bitcoin is considered a commodity and that it was the only crypto that he was willing to label a commodity.

Yet, Gensler has refused to talk about the status of other crypto tokens where the SEC stated that many of them have key attributes of a security.

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The statement sparks much controversy on whether or not the rest of crypto should be considered as securities or not.

Gensler’s statement follows the statement of the chair of the CFTC, Rostin Behnam, who also publicly stated that Bitcoin is a commodity.

With the chairs of two government agencies who are involved in regulating crypto, it seems that Bitcoin’s status as a commodity seems almost certain.

Bitcoin.com reports:

Gensler’s statement agrees with the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Rostin Behnam, who said last month that bitcoin (BTC) is a commodity. However, Behnam further said ether (ETH) is also a commodity.

Bitcoin proponents welcome Gensler’s clarification. Digital assets manager Eric Weiss tweeted: “Gensler is the 2nd consecutive SEC Chair to declare that bitcoin is a commodity, making it all but impossible for this classification to be altered in the future. Very significant indeed.”

The pro-bitcoin CEO of Microstrategy, Michael Saylor, opined: “Bitcoin is a commodity, which is essential for any treasury reserve asset.

This allows politicians, agencies, governments, and institutions to support bitcoin as a technology and digital asset to grow the economy and extend property rights and freedom to all.” The Nasdaq-listed software company has amassed 129,218 bitcoins for its corporate treasury.

Gensler then continued to claim that there were thousands of crypto that were not compliant the laws and regulations.

However, many have challenged that the regulations are still not clear including members of Congress which requested the SEC for further clarification.

At this point in time, no sufficient answer has still been given and many are wondering what the exact criteria is that the SEC uses to determine whether or not a token is considered a security or a commodity.

What is interesting is that Gensler also refrained from mentioning anything about Ethereum which seems to have remained unaffected by the SEC despite falling into the same category as other tokens like XRP which the SEC has claimed to be a security.

CoinTelegraph reports:

Crypto Twitter also picked up on the fact that Gensler refrained from mentioning whether he placed Ether in the same commodities boat, despite the regulator and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC) previously agreeing that the asset was a commodity just like Bitcoin.

Nevertheless, Gensler’s views on Bitcoin have been seen as a positive for the king of crypto.

Bitcoin bull Michael Saylor shared the video to his 2.5 million Twitter followers, adding that Bitcoin is essential as a treasury reserve asset, which will allow governments and institutions to support it as a digital asset to grow the economy.

The recent development could hint on what future regulation might look like which investors need to be aware of.

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