Bitcoin maxi Michael Saylor said several cryptocurrency altcoins, such as Ethereum and Ripple, will not achieve institutional acceptance for the next decade.
MicroStrategy Chairman Michael Saylor told attendees at the annual Bitcoin (BTC) For Corporations event that Wall Street regulators consider “everything below the stack” to be unregistered crypto-asset securities.
“You could see the writing on the wall when the Bitcoin spot ETF was approved in January. “By the end of May, we will know that Ethereum will not be approved, and if Ethereum is not approved this summer, it will be very clear to everyone that ETH will be considered a crypto-asset security and not a commodity.”
Michael Saylor, Chairman, MicroStrategy
Saylor also grouped other non-Bitcoin cryptocurrencies such as Solana (SOL), Ripple (XRP), and Cardano (ADA) into the same unregistered crypto asset security bracket.
Ethereum crackdown
The comments come as several spot Bitcoin ETF issuers have applied for similar products based on Ethereum (ETH), the cryptocurrency’s second-largest digital asset. In response, the SEC delayed the filing of several spot ETH ETFs from issuers such as BlackRock, Fidelity, and Grayscale.
Moreover, the US SEC has continued to crack down on Ethereum and the broader cryptocurrency industry as supporters argue that tokens like ETH fall outside the scope of existing securities laws.
SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has considered ETH a security since at least last year, according to a recent report citing a year-old document.
As ETH transitions to a proof-of-work consensus, the SEC has issued Wells notices to key ETH stakeholders such as financial giants such as Consensys and Uniswap in their investigation.