Michael Saylor, the founder and CEO of MicroStrategy, the leading US-listed company in terms of Bitcoin holdings, predicted on May 2nd that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would classify Ethereum as a security this summer and reject applications for Ethereum spot ETFs.
In the context of the lawsuit between MetaMask’s parent company ConsenSys and the SEC, which accuses the SEC of attempting to classify Ethereum as a security, Michael Saylor made this prediction during the 2024 MicroStrategy World conference on May 2nd. He further analyzed that other cryptocurrencies, including BNB, SOL, XRP, and ADA, would also be classified by the SEC as unregistered securities.
Michael Saylor, who has always been a strong supporter of Bitcoin, insisted that only Bitcoin has received full institutional recognition and referred to it as the “only universal” institutional-grade cryptocurrency, emphasizing that “there will be no other.”
Previously, MicroStrategy’s Q1 2024 financial report revealed that the company had spent an additional $1.65 billion to purchase 25,250 Bitcoins since Q4 of last year. In addition to continuously buying Bitcoin, MicroStrategy also accelerated the development of its Bitcoin applications. On May 1st, it announced the launch of MicroStrategy Orange, a decentralized identity protocol built on the Bitcoin Ordinals protocol.
The chances of approving an Ethereum spot ETF have greatly decreased. After the approval of the Bitcoin spot ETF in January this year, the market initially had an optimistic outlook for the approval of an Ethereum spot ETF. However, in recent weeks, the market’s optimism has significantly declined. The probability of an approved Ethereum spot ETF on the decentralized prediction market Polymarket is now only 10%, and Bloomberg ETF analysts have lowered their approval probability from over 80% to less than 30%.
The key date for the approval or rejection of the Ethereum spot ETF is currently May 23rd, as it is the final deadline for VanEck’s application. It is expected that the SEC will also decide whether other Ethereum spot ETFs will be approved at that time.
Although Hong Kong has already approved an Ethereum spot ETF ahead of the United States, Scott Johnsson, a US financial lawyer, believes that the SEC will reject the application for an Ethereum spot ETF this month and there is a high probability that no approvals will be granted later this year.
Consensys, the parent company of MetaMask, filed a lawsuit against the SEC last month in an attempt to prevent Ethereum from being classified as a security. ConsenSys provided four reasons to support the argument that Ethereum should not be considered a security, including mentioning that former SEC officials stated in 2018 that Ethereum does not fall under the category of a security.