MAY 7, WILL BE THE DAY. The SEC and CFTC will determine whether cryptos like Ethereum are a security or a utility. BItcoin is off the hook as they've been classified a utility, but other cryptos don't quite get off the SEC's radar that easily. Chairman Clayton of the SEC said they won't classify BTC as a security, and much of the world has followed that ruling. For ETH and other cryptos, they may be classified as a security because of the "Howey Test". That means that at the time of an ICO or token offering, back when, they could be classified as securities. However, today it is different. This is why the Ethereum Foundation is not too concerned since looking at ETH as security today is unapplicable. It is a utility token that has purpose. Smart Contracts allow the development of DApps which execute on the Ethereum platform to process and settle transactions. Therefore they are not really instruments of future value that securities are. They are also not backed by any sort of insurance. People who speculate on their prices are doing so at their own risk, and are not being misled when they invest their money in these assets.
Let's break this down more. A security is a fungible asset which has a future value issued as stock by a publicly traded company. Ethereum is not owned by anyone, it was meant to be decentralized and autonomous. Thus there really is no equity and debt involved. ETH is used as a P2P token which can be programmed with logic to execute on a platform for digital transactions. They are more commodities as "mined" tokens. Like in BTC which uses a mining system to get tokens.
If the SEC does decide it is a security, then DEX's that list ETH will have to meet compliance and register with the SEC. All this regulation will also affect ETH trading, especially the prices. ICO's are already regulated and this can further erode the launching of new projects. Perhaps they may not come to a conclusion yet on May 7 or decide to not do anything at the moment.
NOTE: I am not a financial advisor, this is all the views of the author. Please always do your own research to verify facts.
UPDATE: There was no decision made on May 7. It appears that it must have been a closed door meeting by some committee. There is nothing official about this and not much news about it. It was reported in the WSJ, so it appeared to be like some sort of major day of decision, but for now there is not much else to say.
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