• New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against the KuCoin cryptocurrency exchange for offering unregistered securities in the state.
• United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair recently indicated that all digital assets apart from Bitcoin are unregistered securities.
• The founder of the crypto-law.us, John E Deaton, filed a class action lawsuit claiming that Ethereum is not a security with over 1,000 supporters, 57 from NY.
New York Attorney General Claims Ethereum is a Security
The New York Attorney General Letitia James has recently filed a lawsuit against the KuCoin cryptocurrency exchange for offering unregistered securities in the state. This marked the first time that a regulator claimed in court that Ethereum – the second largest digital asset – is an unregistered security. Moreover, this was further reaffirmed by US SEC chair who stated that all digital assets apart from Bitcoin are considered unregistered securities.
Class Action Lawsuit Against NYAG’s Claim
In response to these claims, John E Deaton – founder of crypto-law.us – filed a class action lawsuit claiming that Ethereum is not a security. This class action has gained over 1,000 supporters so far with 57 of them being residents of New York State itself.
Cryptocurrency Market Fearful Of System Failure
The filing of this case comes amid increased fear amongst investors about potential banking system failure following $25 billion bailout by Federal Reserve during the weekend. Moreover, Ethereum price broke out of multi-week logarithmic downtrend which began in late 2021 and currently stands at $1,735 per token as of writing this article.
Dapps Run on Ethereum Network Could Be Affected Too
Apart from investors worrying about their investments getting classified as unregistered securities; most successful decentralized applications (Dapps) run on top Ethereum network and hence could also get caught up in this classification process if it happens to be true iin future.
Conclusion
To conclude; while it remains unclear whether or not Ethereum will end up being classified as an unregistered security; we can hope for clarity on this issue soon enough when more information becomes available to us in near future regarding this case by New York Attorney General’s Office against KuCoin exchange and other similar cases related to cryptocurrencies and digital assets regulations across different states within United States or elsewhere around globe too!