The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is ending its investigation into whether Ethereum qualifies as a security.
SEC Ends Ethereum Investigation
On Tuesday evening, Consensys, a major Ethereum developer, announced that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is concluding its investigation into the cryptocurrency. The company tweeted, "We are thrilled to share a major triumph for Ethereum developers, technology providers, and industry stakeholders: the SEC's Enforcement Division has notified us of the closure of its Ethereum 2.0 investigation." This indicates that the SEC will not be filing charges that classify ETH sales as securities transactions.
Consensys stated that the SEC decided to end its investigation after receiving a letter from them on June 7. This letter questioned whether the investigation into Ether would be dropped, especially since the SEC had approved spot Ether ETFs in May, implying ETH is a commodity.
Consensys senior counsel Laura Brookover shared the SEC’s response, which indicated that the agency does not plan to recommend any enforcement action. Back in March, Fortune reported that the SEC had issued subpoenas to several companies as part of efforts to classify ETH as a security.
In April, Consensys took legal action against the SEC after getting a Wells notice from the agency. This notice suggested that their MetaMask crypto wallet might have broken securities laws.
The lawsuit argued that the SEC and its Chair, Gary Gensler, had considered ETH to be a security since early 2023. Consensys stated that on March 28, 2023, SEC Division of Enforcement Director Gurbir Grewal approved a formal investigation into whether Ether is a security.
How has the Ethereum Price Moved Recently?
Ethereum is currently priced at $3,543.27, with a 24-hour trading volume of $19.40 billion and a market cap of $425.68 billion, holding 17.88% of the market share. Over the past 24 hours, ETH's price has risen by 3.19%.
Ethereum hit its peak price of $4,867.17 on November 10, 2021. Its lowest price was $0.420897 on October 21, 2015. Since then, the lowest price it reached was $897.01, and the highest price since that low was $4,094.18. Currently, the market sentiment for Ethereum is neutral, with a Fear & Greed Index rating of 64 (Greed).
There are 120.14 million ETH in circulation, with a yearly supply inflation rate of -0.24%, indicating that 292,161 ETH were removed from circulation over the past year.
