Ethereum Foundation under investigation

[Peter90]

The Ethereum Foundation – the Swiss non-profit organization at the heart of the Ethereum ecosystem – is under investigation by an unnamed "state authority," according to the group's website's GitHub repository.

The scope of the investigation and its focus was unknown at press time. According to the GitHub commit dated Feb. 26, 2024, "we have received a voluntary enquiry from a state authority that included a requirement for confidentiality."

The Ethereum Foundation did not return a request for comment.

After the publication of this article, Fortune reported the SEC is seeking to classify ETH as a security, a move that would have major implications for Ethereum, an ETH ETF and crypto as a whole. The financial regulator has sent investigative subpoenas to U.S. companies in the past several weeks, according to Fortune's reporting.

Previously, the Ethereum Foundation's website contained the following disclosure:
"The Ethereum Foundation (Stiftung Ethereum) has never been contacted by any agency anywhere in the world in a way which requires that contact not to be disclosed. Stiftung Ethereum will publicly disclose any sort of inquiry from government agencies that falls outside the scope of regular business operations."

That footer was removed in the Feb 26.

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