Joseph Lubin Criticises SEC’s Approach to Ethereum

Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin believes that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is deliberately hindering innovation, posing a threat to the future of the country’s financial system. This was reported by Cointelegraph.

Speaking at the FT Live’s Crypto and Digital Asset Summit, Lubin explained ConsenSys’s decision to sue the agency after receiving a Wells notice.

“It seems that the SEC has reclassified ether as a security without informing anyone. They are taking a series of strategic enforcement actions instead of engaging in open discourse and clear rule-making,” he said.

In his view, the Commission is attempting to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the crypto industry “in an attempt to paralyse” and force the company out of the country.

Lubin noted that the firm is seeking greater regulatory clarity from the SEC through the courts, considering that the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission previously classified Ethereum as a commodity.

The CEO of ConsenSys also linked the regulator’s enforcement measures against cryptocurrency to the upcoming deadline for a decision regarding spot ETFs based on the asset.

“We believe that this flurry of activity is intended to allow them to claim that their actions were not arbitrary in the very likely event that there is a refusal to launch exchange-traded Ethereum funds,” Lubin explained.

According to him, the SEC has assessed how much financial resources flowed into similar bitcoin products after their approval in January, and they do not want a repeat of the trend with ether.

“I think they are concerned about how much attention and capital will be directed towards our ecosystem, given that it is significantly improving in terms of scalability and usability,” Lubin stated.

He also suggested that the prospect of transferring bank industry client assets into digital form using DeFi structures might frighten traditional financial institutions. For this reason, the SEC “does not want to see a wave of innovation that will truly change the situation,” concluded the head of ConsenSys.

Earlier, lawyers suggested that the company’s lawsuit against the Commission could result in a lengthy legal battle.