Is Ether a Security?

The NYAG sued KuCoin last week under state law, alleging that ether, post-Merge, is a security under the Ethereum blockchain’s proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. The NYAG also alleged that terraUSD (UST) and luna (LUNA) are securities, as well as KuCoin’s Earn platform. I’m not going to get into the last two – regulators have alleged for a while now that “earn” products are securities, and have settlements with various lenders to support that contention, and there are other cases looking at the terraUSD/luna ecosystem.