- Gary Gensler sat down in recent testimony before the House Financial Services Committee to discuss cryptocurrencies.
- Gensler was also investigated regarding the FTX collapse.
- Patrick McHenry raised questions on what Gensler believes Ethereum to be.
The cryptocurrency ecosystem has been going through its fair share of turmoil in the US. With the CFTC and SEC ramping up their scrutiny of the cryptocurrency industry, SEC chair Gary Gensler has been receiving quite the backlash for demotivating the cryptocurrency realm.
In one of the recent testimonies by the House Financial Services Committee, Gensler was stumped by Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry’s question on Ethereum. Significantly, McHenry repeatedly asked Gensler whether he believes ethereum is a security or a commodity. However, Gensler failed to give a clear-cut answer to that question.
Gensler states that Ethereum’s nature depends on the facts of the law
Following McHenry’s repetitive queries on Ethereum, he sarcastically mentioned that these questions would never shock Gensler. However, Gensler failed to give a direct answer for “Ethereum being a security or commodity”. He simply gave an elusive response saying that it depends on the facts of the law.
Consequently, Gensler also acknowledged to McHenry’s query that he wouldn’t want to prejudge. Perhaps McHenry fired back, stating that Gensler has already prejudged Ethereum and taken 50 enforcement actions. McHenry highlighted that the uncertainty in answering this simple question is bad. Gensler and the SEC have been trying to label all cryptocurrencies except bitcoin as securities without clear factual data. The SEC and the CFTC have also been criticized for trying to bring down the cryptocurrency realm.
