The Fate of Ethereum: ETH Pushes Toward $800 as Regulatory Announcement Looms

The fate of cryptocurrency regulation is set to be decided on May 7th as a working group of senior CTFT and SEC officials prepare a meeting that will determine the manner in which digital currencies are classified under securities laws.

Ethereum has taken center stage as the cryptocurrency community awaits the announcement, challenging the $800 barrier as ETH surges ahead of what is predicted to be a positive outcome.

The meeting, first reported by the WSJ earlier this month, will see the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commision discuss the regulatory status of both Ethereum and Ripple.

The regulatory ruling on Ethereum and Ripple classification has remained a divisive topic in the cryptocurrency sector in the lead up to the meeting, with a high-profile crypto trade group recently pressuring the SEC to create a new "Safe harbor" classification for the token.

"We spent a tremendous amount of time with lawyers in the U.S. and in other countries, and are extremely comfortable that it is not a security; it never was a security".

"Is an ICO a security? so far, as our chairman has said, everyone that he has looked at, everyone I have seen is a security Bitcoin itself is not a security but these customized tokens for these initial coin offerings, most of them are. There is some legitimate stuff going that is on and then there is literally the fraud ones."

Ethereum cofounder Joseph Lubin presents a strong argument against the classification of ETH as a security.

"I think we already have a regulatory scheme; securities laws in this country govern securities. If you fail the Howey test, you're not a security. This is a way of accessing a shared compute resource, so I'm not sure Ether needs to be regulated in any way,".

The outcome of Ethereum falling under the regulatory scope of the SEC could prove unlikely given CTFT chairman Christopher Giancarlo's moderate stance on cryptocurrency regulation.

Regardless of the outcome of tomorrow's meeting, a formal position from US regulatory bodies on the classification of cryptocurrencies is set to cement the reality of cryptocurrencies within the current paradigm, paving the way for further adoption.