> comparison with heroin - wtf? To extend that ridiculous analogy, it would be akin to FDA approving heroin based products (similar to how SEC approved Bitcoin ETF in 2021) and then going after heroin
You’re describing regulated opiates versus street heroin. That is the point. Nobody thinks street heroin distributors can reasonably be shocked they’re breaking the law just because pharmacists distribute similar products.
Expressing good arguments forcefully isn’t irrational. The comparison to heroin distribution is an argument ad absurdum showing why Coinbase’s arguments aren’t novel. The rhetoric would not be a structurally different argument if it were instead about jumbo jets or vodka.
> the dude didn't even have a clear answer about the status of Ethereum
Is he required to? The SEC isn’t doing anything to suggest it claims jurisdiction over Ethereum. (It’s also not at his discretion.)
> The SEC isn’t doing anything to suggest it claims jurisdiction over Ethereum. (It’s also not at his discretion.)
That's the thing - they are not clarifying whether they have jurisdiction or not. And then you have to play the guessing game, with CFTC also chiming in about their preferences.
This is the cost of operating business in a grey area. Nobody put a gun to Coinbase's head and forced them to open up shop and get stupidly rich.
If you are running a sketchy business, you better have a team of lawyers going through case law and sketching up a theory of law that is defensible in court. Instead, it looks like Coinbase disliked the answer lawyers gave them, and went for the PR strategy instead. If Coinbase honestly thought they were on the right side of the law, they wouldn't be begging the public to vote for different people.
Not knowing the answer to the most obvious question is mildly embarrassing, to say the least. It's clear that he didn't do his due diligence and jeopardized the SEC competency and integrity. His very clear conflict of interests with FTX (i.e. Sam) and Binance (where he was refused a position some years ago) were already not really helping.
And yeah, not knowing the most obvious answer just begs a simple question: how shall all these crypto exchanges have known (better than the SEC) that A, B or C are a commodity but D or E aren't? Please...
Crypto will prevail, Gary is just a bump in the road. The question is how much more damage he is going to cause to the US before he is removed, while the world is watching China toying with Ethereum having issued yesterday tokenized notes on that blockchain.
> Not knowing the answer to the most obvious question is mildly embarrassing, to say the least
Whether Ethereum is a security is far from obvious. Had Gensler acted like it was, he would have lost credibility. In any case, it's irrelevant to Coinbase, who weren't charged in relation to their Bitcoin or Ether trading.
> how shall all these crypto exchanges have known (better than the SEC) that A, B or C are a commodity but D or E aren't
The SEC released The DAO Report in 2017 laying out a framework [1]. This is when crypto's lobbying stepped up; the status quo was clear. They wanted a different one.
> while the world is watching China toying with Ethereum
China has banned crypto since 2021 [2]. BOCI's $30mm placement in Hong Kong through UBS is interesting, but far from a belwether [3]. (UBS Tokenize has been selling digital assets to wealth management clients in Hong Kong and Singapore for a while.)
You’re describing regulated opiates versus street heroin. That is the point. Nobody thinks street heroin distributors can reasonably be shocked they’re breaking the law just because pharmacists distribute similar products.
Expressing good arguments forcefully isn’t irrational. The comparison to heroin distribution is an argument ad absurdum showing why Coinbase’s arguments aren’t novel. The rhetoric would not be a structurally different argument if it were instead about jumbo jets or vodka.
> the dude didn't even have a clear answer about the status of Ethereum
Is he required to? The SEC isn’t doing anything to suggest it claims jurisdiction over Ethereum. (It’s also not at his discretion.)