Former SEC Executive: ‘Bitcoin Should Be Considered a Security’

Former head of the SEC's Office of Internet Enforcement, John Reed Stark, suggested that bitcoin could be an unregistered security. John Reed Stark made this statement in response to a tweet by analyst Evan Van Ness, who wrote that 855 of the last 1,000 blocks created on the Bitcoin blockchain were mined by just five organizations: Antpool, Foundry, F2Pool, ViaBTC and Binance. This means that they account for about 86% of the total block production, and over 50% of the blocks are created by two enterprises: Antpool and FoundryUSA. It is believed that bitcoin does not fall into the category of securities, since it is decentralized, that is, no one controls it, it is not issued by a single authority and is not traded on any particular market.. As such, bitcoin is not subject to SEC registration requirements.. Therefore, Stark commented on the tweet of an Ethereum enthusiast, writing: “And why again and again they do not want to call bitcoin a security that must be registered with the SEC?” wrote a former top manager of the US Securities and Exchange Commission. In June, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler called bitcoin a commodity.. At the same time, he made a reservation that this applies only to bitcoin and does not apply to other crypto assets.. For ETH, the transition of the Ethereum network to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm has raised uncertainty about the coin’s regulatory status.. A few months ago, Gensler said that after the merger of the network, the ether could turn into a security.