Eric Conner, a distinguished Ethereum determine who helped design the community’s landmark fee-market overhaul EIP-1559 and not too long ago left the ecosystem to work in synthetic intelligence, mentioned late Thursday that the US Securities and Alternate Fee’s new coverage route quantities to a dramatic tailwind for Ether. “The SEC simply lit a rocket underneath Ethereum,” Conner wrote on X on July 31, reacting to a coverage deal with delivered hours earlier by SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins in Washington. Conner characterised the remarks as a “full-blown regulatory pivot,” including that Atkins “informally however unmistakably mentioned Ethereum isn’t a safety,” and that the company had put ETH “within the highlight as the muse for the subsequent period of US finance.”
Is Ethereum The Greatest Beneficiary Of ‘Challenge Crypto’?
Atkins’ ready speech, titled “American Management within the Digital Finance Revolution,” unveiled a program he referred to as Challenge Crypto—a Fee-wide effort to refit securities regulation for on-chain markets. “We’re on the threshold of a brand new period … I’m asserting the launch of ‘Challenge Crypto’—a Fee-wide initiative to modernize the securities guidelines and rules to allow America’s monetary markets to maneuver on-chain,” he mentioned, whereas stressing that his remarks mirrored his views slightly than the Fee’s as an entire. The chair tied the initiative to a current White Home-led coverage push and mentioned he had directed SEC workers to draft clear guidelines for crypto asset distributions, custody, and buying and selling, and to contemplate interpretive and exemptive reduction “within the coming months” to keep away from stifling innovation.
Essentially the most consequential sign for digital-asset markets was Atkins’ stance on asset classification. “Regardless of what the SEC has mentioned previously, most crypto belongings should not securities,” he mentioned, promising “bright-line guidelines” to assist market contributors decide whether or not a token needs to be handled as a digital collectible, a digital commodity, or a stablecoin, and to craft purpose-fit disclosures, exemptions and secure harbors—together with for ICOs, airdrops and community rewards. In parallel, he argued that classifying a token as a safety “shouldn’t be a scarlet letter,” and outlined a path for crypto-securities to flourish inside US markets.
Atkins additionally sketched an formidable market-structure blueprint. He backed side-by-side buying and selling of non-security crypto belongings and crypto-asset securities on SEC-regulated venues, floated a “Reg Tremendous-App” idea to let broker-dealers supply buying and selling, staking and lending underneath a single license, and mentioned he would search to modernize custody guidelines so funding advisers and broker-dealers can maintain crypto belongings underneath up to date requirements. “Will probably be a precedence of my chairmanship to hold out the [report’s] suggestion to modernize the SEC’s custody necessities,” he famous, whereas defending customers’ proper to self-custody and staking.
Crucially for tokenization, Atkins mentioned the Fee would work with companies distributing tokenized securities within the US and supply reduction the place applicable, pointing to pent-up demand “from family names on Wall Avenue to unicorn tech corporations” and explicitly referencing compliance-enabled token requirements comparable to ERC-3643. In a bit on decentralized finance, he pledged to “create house” for each totally on-chain, non-intermediated programs and intermediated fashions, and mentioned DeFi “shall be a part of our securities markets.”
Why Ethereum Takes Middle Stage
Whereas Atkins’ ready remarks didn’t title Ethereum explicitly, they repeatedly referenced Ethereum-native ideas and requirements, and out of doors the speech the chair has not too long ago spoken extra straight about ETH. In a July 21 look on CNBC’s Squawk Field, Atkins mentioned the company has “acknowledged informally greater than formally that Ether isn’t a safety,” including that whether or not corporates maintain ETH in treasury “is as much as corporations to resolve.”
Conner unpacked the identical themes in an eight-part thread that ricocheted throughout Crypto-X. The previous core dev argued that the speech “isn’t simply lip service. It’s a full-blown regulatory pivot,” stressing that Atkins had “informally however unmistakably” eliminated the safety overhang from Ether. “That’s the readability establishments have been ready for,” he wrote, predicting corporate-treasury allocations and a deep link-up between DeFi and Wall Avenue.
He hailed the endorsement of public-chain tokenization as nonetheless extra consequential: “He mentioned: let’s carry regulated markets on-chain… Ethereum is the apparent base layer for this.” And, in a swipe at legacy doctrine, Conner cheered the promise of purpose-built guidelines: “No extra attempting to jam crypto into Nineteen Forties legal guidelines.”
Whether or not that enthusiasm endures will depend upon how rapidly Challenge Crypto strikes from rhetorical flourish to concrete rule-making—however, as Conner put it in his closing salvo, “ETH isn’t only a coin anymore. It’s the US authorities’s most well-liked settlement layer for contemporary finance. Regulatory uncertainty has been ETH’s largest overhang, and now it’s being lifted. The SEC simply put Ethereum within the highlight as the muse for the subsequent period of US finance. That is larger than an ETF. It’s regulatory alignment with ETH as the worldwide digital asset spine. Prepare.”
At press time, ETH traded at $3,669.
Featured picture created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
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