Cardano Foundation fires back at SEC calling ADA security

After the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) named several prominent cryptocurrencies, including Cardano (ADA), as securities in the lawsuit against crypto trading platform Binance, the CEO of Cardano Foundation has expressed his organization’s disagreement.

Specifically, Fortune Magazine earlier reported on Frederik Gregaard’s statement on the issue, in which he argues for regulatory clarity and against the agency’s recent qualification of ADA as a security, as shared by the Cardano Foundation on June 6.

According to Gregaard:

“The Cardano Foundation disagrees with the recent qualification of ADA as a security under US law. We look forward to the continued engagement with regulators and policymakers to achieve legal clarity and certainty on these matters.”

Security or not?

As a reminder, the SEC chair Gary Gensler has repeatedly stated his view that nearly every crypto asset was a security, with the exception of Bitcoin (BTC), which means they represent an investment contract and, therefore, must register with the agency.

For a long while, this has been the point of contention between the US securities regulator and blockchain company Ripple, which the SEC accuses of illegally issuing and selling the XRP token that it considers a security as opposed to a commodity.

In the lawsuits it recently filed against crypto exchanges Binance and Coinbase, the agency alleges that they offered digital assets such as Cardano, Solana (SOL), Polygon (MATIC), Binance Coin (BNB), and others without prior registration of those currencies as securities.

Interestingly, the SEC mentioned nothing of Ethereum (ETH), even though Gensler had earlier hinted that it might qualify as a security, and the crypto public is waiting for the release of the speech in which the former SEC Division Director William Hinman said that Ethereum was not a security. 

Meanwhile, the ADA token was at press time changing hands at the price of $0.34, down 4.21% on the day and declining 9.49% across the previous week, as well as losing 7.35% over the past month, as per the latest data retrieved by Finbold on June 7.