Vitalik isn't actually Ethereum's "leader" anymore. He's one researcher among many. He's still a very productive researcher but he's not a decision-maker. Anyone who wants to see how decisions are actually made can listen to the biweekly dev calls, where people from all the various independent client teams get together to coordinate changes.

Also, the CFTC chair actually indicated that both BTC and ETH are commodities: https://cryptopotato.com/cftc-chair-reiterates-bitcoin-and-e...