United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Heath Tarbert, in an interview conducted during invest: ethereum economy conference on October 14, offered unreserved praise for Ethereum (ETH).
- Tarbert was interviewed by CoinDesk’s Michael J. Casey, and provided his stance on Ethereum and DeFi, regulation, and more in a wide-ranging interview
- He compared Bitcoin to e-mail, while Ethereum going far beyond that
- Tarbert did not offer a definitive opinion on how Ethereum and DeFi fit into US commodities laws and whether it was a security, but was impressed by the asset
- He did say that the more decentralized the network becomes, the more likely it is to be classified as a commodity - which would soothe any investors’ anxieties about securities violations
- Speaking generally about Ethereum, said, “Let me just basically say how impressed I am by Ethereum, full stop, period"
- US authorities have cracking down on several projects for securities violations, including BitMEX
- Regarding DeFi, Tarbert was effusive in his praise, calling DeFi “obviously revolutionary” with the potential to “ reduce systemic risk”
- The whole interview indicated that Tarbert is knowledgeable about developments in the space, with one primary concern of his being the flouting of US laws by offshore exchanges