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Eric Conner, a notable Ethereum personality who assisted in crafting the network’s significant fee-market reform EIP-1559 and recently departed the ecosystem to focus on artificial intelligence, stated late Thursday that the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s new policy trajectory constitutes a significant advantage for Ether. “The SEC just ignited a rocket under Ethereum,” Conner posted on X on July 31, responding to a policy speech made hours earlier by SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins in Washington. Conner described the comments as a “complete regulatory shift,” adding that Atkins “informally but clearly indicated that Ethereum is not a security,” and that the agency had placed ETH “in the limelight as the foundation for the upcoming era of US finance.”
Is Ethereum The Primary Beneficiary Of ‘Project Crypto’?
Atkins’ prepared address, titled “American Leadership in the Digital Finance Revolution,” revealed a program he termed Project Crypto—a Commission-wide initiative to update securities regulations for on-chain markets. “We are on the brink of a new era … I am announcing the initiation of ‘Project Crypto’—a Commission-wide effort to modernize the securities laws and regulations to allow America’s financial markets to transition on-chain,” he explained, emphasizing that his statements reflect his personal views, rather than those of the Commission collectively. The chair linked the initiative to a recent White House-driven policy movement and mentioned he had instructed SEC staff to draft clear regulations for crypto asset distributions, custody, and trading, and to consider interpretative and exemptive relief “in the upcoming months” to foster innovation.
The most critical indicator for digital-asset markets was Atkins’ perspective on asset classification. “Regardless of what the SEC has stated previously, most crypto assets are not securities,” he stated, vowing “clear-cut rules” to assist market participants in determining if a token should be regarded as a digital collectible, a digital commodity, or a stablecoin, and to develop appropriate disclosures, exemptions, and safe harbors—including for ICOs, airdrops, and network rewards. Simultaneously, he asserted that labeling a token as a security “should not be a stigma,” and outlined a pathway for crypto-securities to thrive within US markets.
Atkins also outlined an ambitious market structure vision. He supported simultaneous trading of non-security crypto assets and crypto asset securities on SEC-regulated platforms, proposed a “Reg Super-App” concept to enable broker-dealers to facilitate trading, staking, and lending under a unified license, and expressed intentions to reform custody regulations so investment advisers and broker-dealers can hold crypto assets under modernized standards. “It will be a priority of my leadership to implement the [report’s] suggestion to refresh the SEC’s custody requirements,” he remarked, while defending users’ right to self-custody and staking.
Significantly for tokenization, Atkins mentioned that the Commission would collaborate with firms distributing tokenized securities in the US and provide relief when necessary, citing high demand “from well-known entities on Wall Street to significant tech firms” and explicitly referencing compliance-enabled token standards such as ERC-3643. In a section discussing decentralized finance, he committed to “create opportunity” for both fully on-chain, non-intermediated systems and intermediated models, asserting that DeFi “will integrate with our securities markets.”
Why Ethereum Takes Center Stage
Although Atkins’ prepared comments did not explicitly mention Ethereum, they frequently referred to Ethereum-native concepts and standards, and outside the address, the chair has recently spoken more directly about ETH. In a July 21 appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Atkins stated that the agency has “indicated informally more than formally that Ether is not a security,” adding that whether corporations maintain ETH in treasury “is at the discretion of the companies.”
Conner elaborated on the same themes in an eight-part thread that circulated widely on Crypto-X. The former core developer asserted that the speech “isn’t merely symbolic. It’s a complete regulatory shift,” emphasizing that Atkins had “informally but clearly” alleviated the security burden from Ether. “That’s the clarity institutions have been waiting for,” he wrote, predicting allocations from corporate treasuries and a profound connection between DeFi and Wall Street.
He celebrated the endorsement of public-chain tokenization as even more significant: “He said: let’s bring regulated markets on-chain… Ethereum is the evident base layer for this.” And, in a critique of traditional doctrine, Conner applauded the promise of tailored rules: “No more attempting to fit crypto into 1940s legislation.”
Whether that enthusiasm persists will hinge on how swiftly Project Crypto transitions from rhetorical flourish to tangible rule-making—but, as Conner stated in his concluding remarks, “ETH isn’t merely a coin anymore. It’s the US government’s favored settlement layer for contemporary finance. Regulatory ambiguity has been ETH’s greatest burden, and now it’s being lifted. The SEC just positioned Ethereum in the spotlight as the foundation for the next phase of US finance. This is more significant than an ETF. It’s regulatory alignment with ETH as the global digital asset backbone. Prepare yourselves.”
At press time, ETH traded at $3,669.
Featured image generated with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
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