The SEC Rules Ethereum as Not a Security. Could They Realistically even Have Done the Opposite?
Of course they technically could have ruled Ethereum as a security, but if you ask me the chances were very slim what they would.
William Hinman, director of the SEC’s division of corporate finance, said at the Yahoo All Markets Summit Crypto Conference that Ethereum will not be regulated as a security by the SEC, but a lot of ICOs will.
Hinman states that the most important issue in determining whether cryptocurrencies and ICOs are securities, is whether there was a an expectation of a return (profit) by a third party. Specifically, whether there was person or a group that sponsored the creation of the assets and played a significant role in its development and maintenance. So basically he puts a lot of weight on the fact whether a project is decentralized or not, in terms of power structure, and mentions Ethereum and Bitcoin are decentralized and therefore will not be regulated as a security.
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This is interesting. A great part of all the projects and ICOs that have been started in the last 12 months are quite centralized when it comes to the power structure. When that is the case, the only way out for those projects and to be classified not as a security, is to prove that their coin or token is for personal use. This is what projects mean with ‘our token is a utility token’.
Of course, with a lot of ICOs some obscure use case ‘forced’ into their project for their token to to this. Or they ask for a donation after which follows some sort of airdrop (which reminds me of the first free 5 lives or 100 credits to play a game or use an app). I guess we’ll see whether this holds up in courts ;-)
Could the SEC have actually deemed Ethereum as a security? I don’t really think so. Hell would have broken loose and a truckload of work would await them immediately. Also that would have been crippling to the entire crypto and blockchain industry, not something that is necessarily a goal of the SEC.
Next to that, it would bring a lot of traditional companies (mostly in the financial services) into trouble, since they ‘touched’ Ethereum or crypto in some form or way through their services. Not taking into account how many banks have touched a project like Ripple for instance. It’s too late for the SEC and they should have done it at least 2 years ago if they would have wanted to.
The market has reacted as expected and prices shot up a few percent immediately following the news.
So, what do you think about all of this? Let me know in the comments!
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Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor, trader or developer. I am just a blockchain & cryptocurrencies enthusiast. Make sure you do your own research, draw your own conclusions and do not invest any money that you cannot afford to lose.
It's good news for ETH and the entire market, but I am still worried about some of my other investments like NEO and OMG which risk being classified as a security. NEO is complicated and there are arguments against it being a security, but at the same time these arguments feel like they're 'loopholes' to get around the howey test (like GAS not being a dividend, but 'slowly released' instead).
I don't know what the practical implications of being classified a security would be honestly. I'm reading that it only impacts USD to crypto trades, not crypto-to-crypto, but I imagine the market will take a plunge if something is deemed a security. Just 'cause... it's crypto after all, FUD and FOMO rule supreme.
I do think this clarity is a very good thing though, and hope we can get all the regulatory stuff over sooner rather than later.
edit: PS I told you about the crypto job a while ago. I could've gotten it... but I decided not to take it. It didn't feel right... I got Bitconnect vibes from it the more and deeper I dug into the project.. some shady stuff going on there that I didn't want to be part of. Too bad though, working in a crypto job would be awesome
Yeah I am also not sure about the others. I guess for the more mature projects it is too late to touch them, but they should be more clear for new projects so a new 'baseline' is created from a certain point in time and we can all move on.
Actually I was curious how that job went indeed and even expected a small post about it ;-) Too bad it didn't feel right. When did you get this feeling? Did you see Carlos behind his desk doing community management :-P?
If you are really serious about pursuing a job in crypto I might be able to help you out. I have a real world network in the Netherlands (especially in Amsterdam) + some good contacts with some of the more serious projects. Just add me on Telegram (see link in my profile) to help me better understand what you are looking for :-)
I didn't want to post about it since I gave them the link to my blog as a way of showing how much I know about crypto. So who knows who's reading along now...
I got bad vibes because it turned out that it's a crypto exchange that...doesn't deal in crypto. You send them 10K of money, the system/website shows that you own 1 BTC (or whatever), but in reality that 1BTC is never bought... in fact, the exchange doesn't even have a wallet.
The whole deal was super fishy.. the more I dug on the internet the more dirt I found, going as far as news articles in major newspapers. Essentially, they try to get money from investors and then they do not spend the money on the things they are investing in, but instead they use the money to pay the salaries, rent, and other costs and maybe 10% goes to what the investors think they are investing in. I think every 4 years or so, the company goes 'bankrupt' and everybody loses their money and they start over again under somebody else's name. They do this to real estate for years now, and now want to hop on the crypto train.
Not only is this illegal I am pretty sure, it's also a complete disaster if you do it to crypto since crypto is going to skyrocket and people are gonna want to take profits and if you don't have the BTC that you said you had bought, then you're going to have to pay them out of pocket in order to make the house of cards not come crashing down.
What concerned me most is that as a community manager, in a way I would be the 'face' of the whole endeavour and probably be the one who'd be answering the questions and perhaps get a LOT of heat when the whole deal comes crashing down. Plenty of people who I asked for advance have mentioned words such as 'katvanger' or 'stroman' to me..
Argh you're gonna make me install Telegram after all now aren't you...! I guess I will do it sometime soon. Because yes, I'd love a job in crypto - but it would have to be something along the lines of communication worker/community manager/contentmanagement. No coding since I don't have the skills for it.
Good that you did your research thoroughly! Very shitty that these types of people exist :-(
Telegram indeed, but a DM on Twitter is also fine. I would also be interested in the name of the company if you could share that in that DM. Because then, whenever their name pops up, I know not to waste my time on it!
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This decision by the SEC paves the way for ETH to shine once the dust settles.
Ethereum blockchain has so far worked well.
Hackers can always do "shit,"
but then coming up "repair" shit.
Good guys always on end up winning