Ethereum is ‘obviously’ a security

MicroStrategy CEO and Bitcoin (BTC) bull Michael Saylor said that Ethereum (ETH) is ‘obviously’ a security as he doubled down on labeling BTC as the only commodity in the crypto sector.

In an interview with Altcoin Daily, Saylor was questioned on his take regarding the classification of both BTC and ETH as commodities by U.S. Senators such as Kirsten Gillibrand and Cynthia Lummis, along with figureheads from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Saylor provided a lengthy run down on what he thou are the fundamental differences between the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks, as he suggested that only the former has remained unchanged over the years:

“I think Ethereum is a security, I think it’s pretty obvious, […] it was issued by an ICO, theres a management team, there was a pre-mine, there’s a hard fork, there’s continual hard forks, there’s a difficulty bomb that keeps getting pushed back.”

The CEO argued that the constant need for software upgrades on a network driven by a team or entity represents an indicator that ETH is a security. He pointed to the design of the long-delayed difficulty bomb, which he said will “murder” the entire ETH mining industry as examples of such.

According to Saylor, for a digital asset to be classified as a commodity, it needs to be backed by a “completely decentralized protocol where nobody can change it even if they wanted to change it.”

“For it to be a commodity there can’t be an issuer, and the truth is you can’t really make decisions. I mean one of the fundamental insights in the crypto industry is that the fact that you can change it, is what makes it a security,” he said.

Securities are generally understood as fungible and tradable financial instruments that are used to raise capital in public or private markets. While commodities are seen as goods or assets that have a monetary utility. Assets like gold and silver are seen as hard…