Sri Lankan-born Canadian and American venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya stated that Bitcoin (BTC) should be “regulated as a security.”
Palihapitiya broke down his opinion of how Bitcoin is a security rather than a commodity in the 85th episode of the All-In Podcast. Chamath joins this weekly show with Jason Calacanis, David Sacks & David Friedberg where they discuss investing and the markets.
The “Besties” as they call their group, recently recorded themselves bragging about a pump and dump of the altcoin Solana.
Earlier this year Chamath was in the news for stating very clearly that the the genocide of Chinese Uyghurs was “below his line” of concern. This of course caused massive blowback for him, leading to the Warriors basketball team distancing themselves and him capitulating with an apology.
Why Does Chamath Say Bitcoin is a Security?
Palihapitiya said that a single “Bitcoin has a legitimate non-fungible entry in a blockchain” adding that “at this point, Bitcoin has to be regulated like a security even if it is not and it’s more of a commodity only because of the volume and the sheer size of the market.” This explanation is puzzling because it doesn’t seem as if Chamath understands the difference between a security and a commodity.
The SEC is Firm on Bitcoin as a Commodity
On the other hand, the Chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Gary Gensler recently stated that only Bitcoin deserves the status of commodity and that all of the 20,000+ altcoins fall under the category of security.
“Some, like Bitcoin, and that’s the only one, Jim, I’m going to say because I’m not going to talk about any one of these tokens, my predecessors and others have said, they’re a commodity,” Gensler stated in an interview with CNBC on Monday.
Despite considering Bitcoin as a commodity, the SEC has rejected multiple spot exchange-traded funds (ETF) recently including Grayscale’s and Bitwise’s spot ETF applications.
