The U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has a three-part mission: Protect investors. Maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets. Facilitate capital formation.
The main purposes of these laws can be reduced to two common-sense notions:
Companies offering securities for sale to the public must tell the truth about their business, the securities they are selling, and the risks involved in investing in those securities.
Those who sell and trade securities – brokers, dealers, and exchanges – must treat investors fairly and honestly.
Given that Gensler can't even say whether or not ETH is a security, it seems questionable whether the SEC even has a role here in the discussion.
Can't is not the same thing as won't. None of us (not even Congress) are entitled to the SEC chair's opinion on anything. The job of ruling whether or not ETH is a security is one for the judiciary, not the executive.
All of this is moot anyway. We know the SEC is bringing a case against coinbase. If that case lists ETH, then we know that the SEC thinks it's a security! Congressional testimony is a weird thing to obsess about, but each to their own.
According to their own site, they aren't that at all.
https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/investing-ba...
Given that Gensler can't even say whether or not ETH is a security, it seems questionable whether the SEC even has a role here in the discussion.