Hinman docs unsealed: SEC concerned over ‘Ether is not a security’ statement
Hinman risked contradicting himself over the statement Ether isn’t a security, unsealed SEC internal discussion documents show. Newly released documents showing edits that were made to a 2018 speech given by former director of the Security and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) corporate finance division Bill Hinman suggest the editors were concerned his statement might undermine the idea that Ether (ETH) is a security . This could risk locking the agency into a position it would find hard to change at a later date, the SEC comments warn. “Even with the caveats in the sentence, it seems that it would be difficult for the agency to take a different position on Ether in the future,” the edits to the documents read. “Further, the rest of the paragraph strongly implies that the thinking applies to Ether.” The Hinman documents refer to internal SEC messages concerning a 2018 speech given by Hinman in which he said that while cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether may start off as sec...