Former SEC Executive: 'Bitcoin Should Be Considered a Security'

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Former head of the SEC's Office of Internet Enforcement, John Reed Stark, suggested that bitcoin could be an unregistered security.

John Reed Stark did ita 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 categorysecurities, 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 a result, bitcoin is not subject to SEC registration requirements. Therefore, Stark commented on the Ethereum enthusiast's tweet, writing:

“And why is bitcoin again and again not wanted to be called 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 GenslerGensler 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.