The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against crypto influencer Ian Balina this week, on the basis of his failure to register a digital asset before launching an initial coin offering (ICO) back in 2018, Decrypt confirms.
The civil complaint would not be considered anything out of the ordinary, as SEC has been filing lawsuits that had to do with unregistered cryptocurrencies for years now. An interesting piece of information appears in its 69th paragraph that claims:
“[Balina was] validated by a network of nodes on the Ethereum blockchain, which are clustered more densely in the United States than in any other country. As a result, those transactions took place in the United States.”
In theory, what the paragraph basically claims is that the United States has the authority to regulate the Ethereum network, as the majority of ETH transactions come from US-based nodes. More specifically, they represent 45.85% of all the network’s nodes, followed by Germany with 19%, as confirmed by Etherscan.
Concerns rise as there is a potential regulatory shamble brewing over a decentralized Ethereum network, which many believe should not fall under any one jurisdiction. Gary Gensler, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission has yet to comment on the recent claims.