According to the CFTC’s court filing, “Certain digital assets are “commodities,” including bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), tether (USDT) and others, as defined under Section 1a(9) of the Act, 7 U.S.C. § 1a(9).”
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission labeled Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether as commodities in its lawsuit against FTX and Alameda Research.
The contents of December 13’s court filing were in contrast to the recent statements of Rostin Behnam, the Chairman of the CFTC. A few days ago, Behnam called Bitcoin the only cryptocurrency that should be viewed as a commodity during a crypto event held at Princeton University. In June, Gary Gensler, the SEC Chairman, also agreed on classifying Bitcoin as a commodity.
The topic of regulating Ethereum as a commodity or security has been vastly debated by US regulators.
Following Ethereum’s transition to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) model, Gensler asserted that staked tokens may qualify as securities. On the other hand, Behnam had earlier claimed in October that Ethereum can be considered as a commodity, before changing his stance on the subject again in November.
