SEC Chair Gary Gensler skirts questions about agency's stance on spot ether ETFs

Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler is not giving any clues yet on whether the agency will approve spot Ethereum ETH +1.68% exchange-traded funds. 

"I don't want to prejudge any one filing, and as you said, there's 10 filings in front of us," Gensler said. "So news alert, I'm not going to prejudge that. But to your question, we look at the facts and circumstances and that which was in front of us." 

Big name firms including BlackRock and Fidelity filed for spot Ethereum ETFs in November and have since been followed by Franklin Templeton, Ark 21Shares, VanEck and Grayscale . Some experts have been optimistic that the SEC could approve a spot Ethereum ETF given that ether futures ETFs already trade and say Grayscale's win against the SEC in court last year could tip the scales. 

Not so decentralized 

Gensler, who has said in the past that most cryptocurrencies are securities and has called for firms to register with the SEC, said the "whole crypto field has challenges," during Friday's interview with YahooFinance. 

"The whole field is rife with abuses and fraud," said Gensler. "Look at the series of bankruptcies in 2022 and 2023 when investors weren't getting the proper disclosures from the middle of the market, the intermediaries. By the way, for the viewing public, this is not that decentralized." 

Intermediaries are pulling together investors' assets and not giving "the proper disclosures," he said. "They're doing things that we would never allow the New York Stock Exchange to do."