CFTC chair says ether and stablecoins are commodities

Rostin Behnam, the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chairman, has reaffirmed his stance on ether (ETH) and stablecoins, making it clear that they qualify as securities.

During a March 8 Senate Agriculture committee hearing on oversight of the CFTC, chairman Rostin Behnam asserted again that he believes stablecoins should be regulated as commodities.

CFTC Chair Behnam tripling down on Ether being a commodity and stablecoins also being commodities, contra SEC Chair Gensler’s interview in NY Mag. Rare to see this level of interagency disagreement in public.
— Justin Slaughter (@JBSDC) March 8, 2023

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand questioned Benham about the differing stance of the CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He referred to the former’s settlement with USDT stablecoin issuer Tether in 2021.

Benham stated that the stablecoin’s status as a commodity was apparent to its enforcement team.

While the CFTC believes bitcoin (BTC) and a good number of altcoins are commodities, its counterpart, the SEC has made it clear over time that BTC may be the only true commodity in the entire digital assets space.

This is a pretty stark (almost impassioned?) rebuke of the ‘everything except BTC is a security’ and ‘stablecoins are securities’ positions. Would be great if the CFTC released the legal analysis on these issues Chairman Behnam says it did. https://t.co/RIeTgUxTFd pic.twitter.com/LGtuEPs4X3
— Lawtoshi (@lawtoshi) March 8, 2023

Gary Gensler’s SEC has taken a heavy-handed approach toward crypto regulation amidst criticisms from web3 proponents. In 2022, the dreaded regulatory watchdog executed 50% more enforcement actions against crypto projects.

Source: https://crypto.news/cftc-chair-says-ether-and-stablecoins-are-commodities/