- United States’ SEC confirmed Bitcoin miners and PoW pools are not securities, providing much-needed regulatory clarity
- Ethereum’s PoS transition is facing growing criticism right now
In a welcome turn of regulatory clarity, the United States’ SEC has drawn a firm line in the digital sand – Bitcoin miners and proof-of-work (PoW) pools are not securities.
It’s a long-awaited distinction that offers relief to a core part of the crypto ecosystem, especially as Ethereum’s [ETH] transition to proof-of-stake (PoS) continues to divide opinion. With one foot in stability and the other in experimentation, the industry now finds itself at a regulatory crossroads – but at least, for PoW, the path just got a little clearer.
SEC draws the line on PoW mining
In a long-awaited clarification, the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance confirmed that PoW mining – both solo and pooled – does not fall under U.S securities law. The statement emphasized that mining activity on public, permissionless blockchains like Bitcoin is an administrative function, not an investment contract.
“It is the Division’s view that “Mining Activities” … do not involve the offer and sale of securities…”
Since miners rely on computational power rather than a central entity to generate profits, the “efforts of others” prong of the Howey test does not apply. The decision offers regulatory relief to PoW miners and signals a more transparent approach under the new SEC leadership.
Calls to reconsider Ethereum’s PoS model resurface
Following the SEC’s clarification on PoW mining, critics of Ethereum’s PoS transition are once again amplifying their calls for a return to the old consensus model. For example – Prominent industry voice Meltem Demirors believes that Ethereum’s shift to PoS has diluted the network’s core value by accelerating the rise of Layer-2 (L2) solutions.
“Proof of Stake was a mistake. Ethereum could have been a trillion-dollar protocol with its own robust energy to compute ecosystem. Instead, MEV extracts billions in value from users and apps.”
According to her, PoS fragmented the Ethereum ecosystem and missed an opportunity to build a trillion-dollar protocol powered by an energy-to-compute economy akin to Bitcoin’s. She further claimed that under PoW, Ethereum could have driven innovation in GPU computing and hardware acceleration.
Echoing this sentiment, Red Panda Mining shared a rather blunt statement on X.
Source: X
With PoW now enjoying regulatory clarity, the debate around Ethereum’s architectural direction is heating up once again.
Ethereum’s price eyes $2,000 as bullish momentum builds
Ethereum edged closer to the $2,000-mark on 22 March, with the altcoin closing at $1,990 after modest gains of 1.32% at press time.
While ETH continued to trade well below its early February levels, technical indicators suggested a potential shift in momentum. The MACD flipped positive, with the MACD line crossing above the Signal line – A classic bullish crossover. The histogram also printed its third consecutive green bar, pointing to sustained upward pressure.
Source: TradingView
Still, the RSI hovered at 41.97, keeping ETH in neutral territory. A decisive break above $2,000 could open the door to further gains, though thin trading volumes left room for caution.
For now, Ethereum may be cautiously poised for a rebound on the charts.
