See additionally: DeFi Should not Should Fear Concerning the SEC’s Expanded Dealer Rule | Opinion

“The stakes aren’t simply excessive for Prometheum and the remainder of the trade, but additionally for the federal government company that has claimed for years that there is a correct means for crypto companies to ‘are available and register’ to do enterprise within the U.S.; Prometheum got here in and registered however what occurs subsequent is unclear. And whereas it exams these murky waters, it might additionally assist set up whether or not the SEC intends to view ETH as a safety.”

Prometheum is ready to provide each custody and buying and selling in these digital property as a result of, unusually, it has licenses to do each. Meaning it might probably “legally sling Ethereum as a safety,” within the phrases of Fortune’s Jeff John Roberts and hope that “regulators don’t have any alternative however to acknowledge the designation.” On this state of affairs, Prometheum would then be the one platform for legally buying and selling ether, the safety — a fairly good pure monopoly if you will get it.

The query, then, is whether or not the SEC, witnessing this anomaly, would step in to lastly designate ether a safety, or not. Mike Selig, a fintech lawyer at Willkie Farr & Gallagher, says that’s unlikely, given the SEC’s choice the previous few years for not saying something very particular on the subject of crypto. “The SEC is prone to stay impartial on Ethereum,” he says. They’ve accomplished no favors for ether. I wouldn’t anticipate it makes one now.” Below the phrases of the SEC’s special-purpose broker-dealer, Prometheum has broad latitude to designate property as securities to checklist on its platform (as an illustration, by exhibiting that an asset meets the all-important Howey Check).