Opinion: SEC ends investigation into Ethereum 2.0 to avoid lawsuits

The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) previously said it had ended its "Ethereum 2.0" investigation into Consensys, and Teresa Goody Guillén, a partner at law firm Baker Hostetler and a former Securities Exchange Commission litigator, told The Block that this does not mean the commission is certain that Ethereum is not a security, but it does provide another data point that the commission has concluded that it will not file a lawsuit alleging that Ethereum is a security at this time.
One former SEC enforcement lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the SEC's decision to drop the investigation was probably because the agency was taking too much of a litigation risk, saying: "I think the important thing to remember is that I don't think closing a case necessarily means they've decided it's not a security, they may just decide they don't want to risk a lawsuit."