Gary Gensler, the chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, said thatBitcoin was the only criptocurrency he was prepared to publicly label a commodity.
Gensler spoke about the implications of labeling particular cryptocurrencies commodities rather than securities on CNBC's Squawk Box.
Gensler spoke to Jim Cramer about his earlier calls to introduce more regulatory clarity to the market for criptocurrencies.
He stated that all of the main market regulators in the U.S. agreed that cryptocurrencies were a highly speculative asset class. The SEC and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission CFTC have been following the ups and downs of this asset class for a long time, focusing on not only Bitcoins but on hundreds of other tokens on the market.
The SEC concluded that the investing public was hoping for a return from most of the token, just like when they invested in securities. Gensler said that the key attributes of securities put them under the jurisdiction of the SEC, which is why many tokens on the market have the key attributes of securities.
On the other hand,bitcoin falls into a different category.
Gensler said that some likeBitcoin are commodities.
He was careful when choosing words to avoid hinting at any other token or revealing potential moves from the SEC, but he was clear thatBitcoin was the only criptocurrency he was ready to publicly label as a commodity.
He said that market regulators in the US, including the SEC, the CFTC, and various other banking regulators, have a lot of work to implement in order to protect the investing public.
Gensler said that the US is open to having hundreds, if not thousands of tokens on its market, if they comply with SEC laws.
When asked whether the public was already too comfortable with investing inBitcoin, especially now that the SEC has called it a commodity, Gensler said it was no different from investing in traditional markets.
There is a lot of risk in criptocurrency, but there is also risk in classic securities markets, he told CNBC.