A major consensus has been reached by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) which has determined Ethereum is a commodity, like Bitcoin. This seemed to anger some naysayers in the crypto-Twitterverse who still maintain it is a scam.

The recent decision by the CFTC has caused controversy, pitting some in the Bitcoin and Ethereum camps against each other. The vitriolic arguments have mainly spilled over onto Twitter where claims that Ethereum is a ‘scam’ is causing a serious rift in the community. The CFTC comparing Ethereum to Bitcoin as a ‘commodity’ further inflamed tensions.

The CFTC, however, even went further: the regulatory body’s Chairman Heath Tarbert confirmed that Ether futures trading will be happening in the near future. The announcement essentially resolved most of the pressing legal questions surrounding Ethereum, but a vocal part of the industry seems keen on tearing down this decision.

Ethereum Critics Voice Their Anger Online After CFTC Decision

Applied cryptography consultant Peter Todd (@peterktodd), said proactively that “ETH makes neutral people turn bad.” He was responding to CEO of Atlantic Financial, Bruce Fenton, who claimed that many are too quick to throw around the word ‘scam’ to things they just don’t like.

Mr. Hodl (@MrHodl), known for being a Bitcoin evangelist on Twitter, also took aim at Fenton.

Critics also pointed out that something can be both a commodity and a security, implying that Ethereum could still be considered as the latter down the road. However, as lawyer Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky) points out, the SEC already told us Ethereum is not a security last summer. Case closed, it would seem.

Others are just happy that this controversy lets the rest of the cryptocurrency market breathe a little bit other than being so Bitcoin-centered all the time.

Former Bitcoin Core Developer Joins the Critics

The CFTC announcement comes just a day after a former Bitcoin Core developer called Ethereum 1.0 a ‘scam’ due to apparently lying about scalability. He questions whether Ethereum 2.0 will do the same, as previously reported on BeInCrypto. However, it is hard to ignore Bitcoin’s own issues with scaling which, far from being settled, is the whole reason we have so many Bitcoin clones, to begin with.

So, is this just tribalism? A concerted campaign to discredit competition in the cryptocurrency space? It’s hard to say, but frankly, it doesn’t matter: in the eyes of the law, Ethereum is officially legitimate.

What do you think of the controversy? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Images are courtesy of Twitter, Shutterstock.