Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin is warning the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), saying the cryptocurrency regulator’s current policies will have a lasting effect on the sector.
In a new interview with Wired, Lubin says that if ETH is declared a security by the SEC, people in the US won’t be able to buy it and developers won’t be able to develop Ethereum or build applications on top of it. of the protocol.
Earlier this year, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler declined to confirm whether or not he considers ETH a security.
Says Lubin,
“If the SEC succeeds in upholding it, it will have a chilling effect on Ethereum users across America…
If the US gets its way, it could use its long arm of law to reach out to several countries around the world and apply pressure to reduce access to decentralized protocols and financial disintermediation.
We don’t want to feel like we’re being left out by an irrational or careless supervisor. We must stand our ground.”
Lubin is the CEO of Consensys, the makers of MetaMask, the world’s most popular crypto wallet, which recently received a Wells Notice from the SEC, which the regulator issues when it wants to warn of an upcoming enforcement action.
Consensys quickly responded with a lawsuit against the SEC, which Lubin, valued at between $1 billion and $5 billion by Forbes in 2018, says he wants to prevent the regulator from reclassifying ETH as a security.
“Our campaign concerns MetaMask. But it also stands alone. The SEC has been monitoring the sector for a while now, essentially declaring internally that ETH is a security and enforcing that secret idea. I think it would continue to do that unless we take some independent action that is standalone and gets to the heart of the matter: the SEC wants to reclassify ETH.
It is difficult to create a technological paradigm shift in a society that feels like everything is functioning just fine. In recent decades, internet technology has caused confusion and required a lot of dialogue and open-mindedness. In the US, safe havens were created to allow web technology to flourish, which had a profoundly transformative effect.
This time I’m pretty sure it’s going to work out fine. But we are in a very painful phase where there is resistance.”
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