“We’ve been very clear on bitcoin: bitcoin is a commodity. We haven’t said anything about Ether – until now,” Tarbert said. “It is my view as chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission that Ether is a commodity.”

Tarbert also confirmed that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission collaborates with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the two cryptocurrencies and they have agreed that none of them fall into the category of securities. He has also said that CTFC may make it possible to trade Ether in U.S. markets.

What are Futures?

Futures are financial derivative contracts binding parties to perform a transaction with an asset at a specified time in the future and at a predetermined price. In this case, the buyer must buy, and the seller must sell, an underlying asset for the specified price regardless of its actual market price.

The CFTC chairman has said: “It stands to reason that similar assets should be treated similarly. If the underlying asset, the original digital asset, hasn’t been determined to be a security and is therefore a commodity, most likely the forked asset will be the same.”