MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, a bitcoin bull, said ether is “obviously” a security, while bitcoin is the only commodity in the cryptocurrency space.
In a recent interview with foreign media, Michael Saylor was asked what he thought about the “U.S. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Cynthia Lummis’ decision that Bitcoin and Ethereum should be considered commodities rather than securities”. The difference is analyzed. Michael Saylor states
I think that ether is a security, it’s obvious, […] it’s issued via an ICO, there’s a management team, there’s pre-mining, pre-sale, there’s a hard fork, and then there’s a hard fork, And the difficulty bomb that keeps getting delayed.
Michael Saylor believes that because the team behind Ethereum continues to make software upgrades to the network, this continued demand also shows that Ethereum is a security. He also stated that the design of the difficulty bomb would “murder” the entire ether mining market.
According to Michael Saylor, for a digital asset to be classified as a commodity, the asset needs to have a “completely decentralized protocol that cannot be changed even if someone wants to.” He says:
To become a commodity, there can be no so-called issuers and decision makers. One of the fundamental insights of the cryptocurrency industry is that if you can modify it, it is a security.
“Securities” are generally understood as fungible, tradable financial instruments, mainly used to raise funds in public or private markets, and are regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC); while “commodities” are considered to have monetary utility Commodities or assets that are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), generally speaking, assets such as gold and silver are regarded as hard commodities, while rice and tea are soft commodities.
Michael Saylor reiterated that Bitcoin is a commodity, mainly because the core of the network cannot be changed, just like the physical structure of gold:
If you want to market yourself as a digital commodity, you are trying to create an asset similar to gold in the online world.
Despite Michael Saylor’s arguments above, Bitcoin has also undergone several network upgrades, such as the Taproot soft fork implemented last November , aimed at improving network security, privacy, and scalability.
When asked about his thoughts on Cardano’s native token ADA and other altcoins, Michael Saylor said:
I think all proof-of-stake (PoS) network tokens are securities and are very risky […] Regulators will decide where they go.
Michael Saylor continued to point out that he prefers Bitcoin because he is worried that altcoins are non-compliant security tokens that may disappear due to regulatory policies.
Despite the weak performance of the cryptocurrency market in the first half of the year, MicroStrategy, helmed by Michael Saylor, continued to increase its purchases of Bitcoin. As of June 29, the company held a total of 129,699 Bitcoins, worth about 3.98 billion US dollars, which is the largest holding in the world. Listed company with the most bitcoins.
