The world’s second largest crypto asset by market capitalization, Ethereum, is keeping pace with innovative upgrades. The latest development on Ethereum is the completion of its latest Shanghai upgrade.
On April 13, ConsenSys took over Twitter to celebrate the long-awaited launch of Ethereum’s Shanghai upgrade. The update allows ETH players to withdraw their deposited Ether for the first time.
However, responding to the announcement, CryptoLaw founder Attorney Deaton referred to Hinman’s remark.
ConsenSys celebrates Ethereum’s upgrade, Deaton responds
According to the ConsenSys tweet, Ethereum’s upgrade applied to the execution and consensus layers of the network. Therefore, users could finally withdraw their staked ETH from Ethereum’s stake pool.
In its announcement, ConsenSys promised a giveaway of Shanghai/Capella NFT to some of the ETH players. This was part of the company’s strategy to celebrate the recent evolution of ETH through an upgrade.
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ConsenSys is an Ethereum software company that supports the development of applications on the Ethereum blockchain.
But Pro-XRP Attorney Deaton answered to the announcement from ConsenSys regarding the latest Ethereum upgrade. He wrote: “When we look at Ethereum, we don’t see a third promoter.” Deaton’s response referred to an old comment by the former director of the SEC’s Division of Corporate Finance, Bill Hinman.
Hinman made the remark during an interview with CNBC in 2018. He said that the SEC as a regulator does not see any third-party promoter when observing the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Deaton’s response using the Hinman note implies that ConsenSys is Ethereum’s third-party promoter.
Controversy surrounding Hinman’s remark
During Yahoo Finance’s All Market Summit 2018, Hinman announced that BTC and ETH are non-securities. However, the former SEC director did not comment on XRP even though the crypto token was among the top three digital assets by market capitalization in 2018.
Following the SEC’s charge against Ripple for selling unregistered securities, much controversy arose regarding Hinman’s remark. Some crypto community members believed that the SEC was biased in its regulatory actions on cryptocurrency. That was said by the US regulatory agency prefer some crypto protocol over others and ETH enjoys the magnanimity of the SEC.
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Attorney Deaton revealed that Hinman received more than $9 million in profit sharing from Simpson Thacher. Some of the money came later his exit from the SEC in December 2020.
In addition, a non-profit regulator, Empower Oversight published documents indicating the biased activities of the former SEC Director. According to Empower Oversight, Hinman had a direct financial interest in a law firm, Simpson Thacher and Bartlett.
Featured image from Pixabay and chart from Tradingview
