Meanwhile, Michael Saylor believes the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will this summer label Ethereum as a security and subsequently deny every spot Ethereum ETF application. Most likely, he added, these other major cryptos include Binance Coin (BNB), Solana (SOL), Ripple (XRP), and Cardano (ADA) are most likely to be classified under security by the SEC as well.
"After that, you're going to see Ethereum, BNB, Solana, Ripple, Cardano, everything down the stack is just crypto-asset securities unregistered," Saylor stated in a keynote speech in today's event of the MicroStrategy World 2024 conference.
"None of them will ever be wrapped by a spot ETF, accepted by Wall Street, mainstream institutional investors as a crypto asset," he added.
On the other, Saylor stated that the only full-institutional-acceptance crypto asset was Bitcoin, dubbed as "the one universal institutional-grade crypto asset without any contenders.".
The founder of MicroStrategy is a vocal Bitcoiner who is exclusively focused on Bitcoin investment and building Bitcoin infrastructure.
Saylor's comments come a day after MicroStrategy announced MicroStrategy Orange, a decentralized identity solution based on Bitcoin. Earlier in the week, the firm also announced about its acquisition of 122 BTC last month.
Saylor isn't alone in his doubts about near-term spot Ethereum ETF approval. The Founder of TRON Foundation, Justin Sun, earlier raised concerns with respect to Ethereum ETF and its regulatory issues. He is, therefore, of the opinion that spot Ethereum ETFs are not going to get an approval from the SEC this month. On May 23 and 24, respectively, the SEC is expected to determine the VanEck and ARK filings.
The recent discussions have been much less in depth than those discussions that went on before SEC staffers gave the nod to spot Bitcoin funds—where, apparently, SEC staff were discussing the matter ad nauseam.
This puts the frustration level high, which increases the chances either for rejection or for deferring decisions.
A definitive classification for Ethereum could clear up how companies treat it. It could also influence the SEC's approval of products like spot ETFs and the willingness of companies to engage with Ethereum. However, not everybody is sharing the doubt. On the Fox Business show "The Claman Countdown," BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said a spot Ethereum ETF could still be possible even if the regulator decides to class the token as a security.