William Hinman (SEC Director Corp Finance, 2017-2020)
playerMoney & Finance · Occult & Esoteric · Crypto & Digital ID
One government speech about a cryptocurrency became the smoking gun in a huge lawsuit about whether regulators pick winners and losers unfairly.
Who they are
William Hinman, a former top official at the SEC (its Director of Corporation Finance from 2017 to 2020).
What they do
In a June 2018 speech he said Ethereum was 'decentralized enough' not to count as a security, and that speech later became a central fight in the SEC's case against Ripple.
How it works
Ripple's lawyers argued the SEC used the same reasoning to give Ethereum a pass while cracking down on XRP, so getting the internal documents behind Hinman's speech turned into the main discovery battle; those documents were finally released in mid-2022.
Why it matters
It matters because it shows a regulator's off-the-cuff public words can effectively decide which crypto assets thrive and which get punished, raising the question of selective enforcement.
The engine's record — word for word
Former SEC Director of Corporation Finance. June 14 2018 Yahoo Finance speech stated Ethereum was "sufficiently decentralized" not to be a security. The Hinman speech production fight was the central discovery battle in SEC v. Ripple Labs — Ripple s defense argued the SEC selectively enforced against XRP while clearing ETH on identical analytical grounds. Speech disclosure operationally completed mid-2022.
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