> The SEC isn’t doing anything to suggest it claims jurisdiction over Ethereum. (It’s also not at his discretion.)
That's the thing - they are not clarifying whether they have jurisdiction or not. And then you have to play the guessing game, with CFTC also chiming in about their preferences.
This is the cost of operating business in a grey area. Nobody put a gun to Coinbase's head and forced them to open up shop and get stupidly rich.
If you are running a sketchy business, you better have a team of lawyers going through case law and sketching up a theory of law that is defensible in court. Instead, it looks like Coinbase disliked the answer lawyers gave them, and went for the PR strategy instead. If Coinbase honestly thought they were on the right side of the law, they wouldn't be begging the public to vote for different people.
That's the thing - they are not clarifying whether they have jurisdiction or not. And then you have to play the guessing game, with CFTC also chiming in about their preferences.