– United States District Court Judge Katherine Polk Failla, who is overseeing the SEC lawsuit against Coinbase, has referred to Ether (ETH) as a commodity in her dismissal of a class-action lawsuit against Uniswap.
– The dismissal order was in response to a case brought by Uniswap users who claimed they lost money due to scam tokens on the exchange.
– Failla’s distinction between ETH and Bitcoin (BTC) as “crypto commodities” was part of her reasoning for dismissing the case and rejecting the argument that Uniswap’s token sales were subject to the Exchange Act.
– This comment by Failla does not provide a definitive ruling on Ether’s legal classification in the U.S., but it adds to the ongoing debate over how cryptocurrencies should be regulated.
– The SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have clashed over jurisdiction concerning cryptocurrencies, with the SEC considering most cryptocurrencies as securities and the CFTC viewing them as commodities.
– Various bills are currently being considered in Congress to provide regulatory clarity for digital assets, with different approaches to dividing authority between the SEC and the CFTC.
– The Digital Asset Market Structure Bill proposes that cryptocurrencies undergo SEC certification to prove decentralization before being classified as commodities.
