Bitcoin is the only coin the SEC Chair will call a commodity

https://www.axios.com/2022/06/28/bitcoin-is-the-only-coin-the-sec-chair-will-call-a-commodity

by el_sinchi • 4 years ago

159 189 4 years ago

The SEC can threaten, but they may have blown up their opportunity to regulate cryptocurrency. If they lose the Ripple vs SEC lawsuit (and, according to observers, it's not been going as well for the SEC as they would wish), they could permanently lose almost all ability to regulate cryptocurrency by their lack of timely action and because of one speech by an SEC official four years ago.

The SEC is basically trying to argue that the speech was personal opinion (and the speech said that ETH was not a security), but Ripple alleges that the speech, though perhaps not an official statement, was much more than a personal opinion. We now know the SEC lawyers were involved in writing the speech, which is making life difficult for the SEC. This is also why the SEC is being far more careful now and is saying only BTC is not a security, but that ship may have sailed.

It's being called the Crypto Trial of the Century. A win for Ripple on the SEC's slip-up could mean the SEC is powerless to intervene in most crypto markets. A win for the SEC would result in mass regulation.

encoderer• 4 years ago

Forgive me for being ignorant but can’t the congress expand SEC powers at any time by changing the law?

gjsman-10004• 4 years ago

Yes, they can. But no, Congress has not because Congress can't come to agreement over cryptocurrency.

lokar• 4 years ago

They are allowed to, but unable to. Unable to do nearly anything.

xhkkffbf• 4 years ago

The saying in Washington is that no one is safe when Congress is in session. And that's pretty much true. Aside from some constitutionally guaranteed activities like petitioning for redress of grievances, they can pretty much legislate anything they can agree upon. (Assuming they can ever agree on anything.)

For instance, the duly elected Democrats who control the House, Senate and White House like to point the finger at the Supreme Court, but they could easily pass whatever law they want about abortion. There would be no more arguing about original intent or penumbrae etc.

ASlave2Gravity2• 4 years ago

Would you mind sharing more of your thoughts on what might play out if the SEC loses? And then also, if you don't mind, what would happen if the SEC wins?

gjsman-10004• 4 years ago

If the SEC loses, unless Congress were to pass a law to grant more authority, the SEC would have almost no ability to regulate cryptocurrency as they would have no ability to define cryptocurrency as a form of "security" (which is the purview they are granted legal authority over, even in their name, the Securities and Exchange Commission).

If the SEC wins, they can define some cryptocurrencies as "securities" which then automatically becomes part of their regulatory authority.

This is why they are being careful to say only Bitcoin isn't a security now. That speech in 2018, centerpiece of the lawsuit, said Ethereum also was not a security. If that speech is found a legally binding statement, it's really hard to find anything smart-contract-powered from Ethereum to XRP as a security.

throwawaymaths• 4 years ago

The SEC is in tough position. Either elon musk can tweet random stuff as personal opinion, or a speech given by the SEC chair has legal standing. I'm watching with popcorn.

gamblor9563• 4 years ago

No lawyers familiar with how administrative agencies work agree with that assessment. And that is, importantly, not how rulemaking works at administrative agencies.

EDIT: Administrative agency "rulemaking" is constrained by a fixed set of procedures that an agency must follow in order to "promulgate" a rule. First, they must publish a draft of the proposed rules, allow for several weeks or months of public comment, spend several weeks or months reviewing those comments, revise the rules as needed based on the comments received (or explain why no revisions are necessary), and then finally publish the finalized rules in the Federal Register.

Comments made by a single employee do not convey, or constrain, an agency's position on matters within its scope (unless those comments are made in, and pursuant to, a legal proceeding, in which case they are binding only for the limited scope of that legal proceeding).

gjsman-10004• 4 years ago

https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/crypto-trial-century-rip...

smabie• 4 years ago

Feels like if BTC is a commodity, then BCH and LTC clearly are as well, no?

tesrx• 4 years ago

Correct. At a minimum, those are not a security.

Gensler has commented on those specifically in the past [1].

[1] https://twitter.com/litecoin/status/1435991743720165378

lawn• 4 years ago

Yes, and there are plenty of other examples too.

kayamon4• 4 years ago

A commodity must be fungible -- i.e. that would imply BTC and BCH/LTC were economically interchangeable.

They aren't. Bitcoin's blockchain has a longer proof-of-work than BCH. Honest nodes will only mine the longest blockchain (per Satoshi). Therefore any blockchain shorter than Bitcoin's will ultimately collapse in the long term, making them unsuitable to be considered commodities.

AlexandrB2• 4 years ago

Being fungible means every BTC is the same other BTC and every BCH is the same as every other BCH, not that BCH is the same as BTC.

Water and oil are both fungible commodities. No one would claim they're economically interchangeable with each other.

HashBasher• 4 years ago

Really? Is corn fungible with oil?

etaioinshrdlu• 4 years ago

Can you try again using less hand-wavey logic?

Every point you make doesn't seem to make much sense.

jeffbee• 4 years ago

This interpretation seems to require a willful misrepresentation of what the man said. He said it is a speculative asset, is has the basic properties of a security, and people other than himself have labeled it a commodity.

Geee• 4 years ago

No. He was talking about other cryptoassets being securities, and named only bitcoin as a commodity.

TimPC• 4 years ago

This is huge. Essentially if they find anyone sold crypto to unaccredited investors they would be engaging in illegal sales of a security. This may lead to lawsuits where crypto sellers find they are on the hook for the losses of people they illegally sold to. It may also lead to jail time for a substantial portion of the crypto community.

jrsj2• 4 years ago

The odds of this happening are effectively 0, federal government is working on a regulatory framework for crypto markets and it definitely doesn’t involve jailing anyone for sales that have previously been considered legal by basically everyone

colejohnson66• 4 years ago

It would probably run afoul of the Constitutional protection against "ex post facto" laws.[0] If something (in this case, selling Bitcoin) was legal when you did it, but is now a crime, it is unconstitutional to prosecute you for it.

[0]: Article I, Section 9 <https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_St...>

treis• 4 years ago

No, this is grossly misleading. Bitcoin is the only one he was prepared to say publicly at that moment was a commodity. That doesn't really say anything about other coins other than he's not willing to take a public stand at that moment.

IAmGraydon• 4 years ago

It may also lead to jail time for a substantial portion of the crypto community.

I'm cracking up over here. Are you actually being serious?

f38zf5vdt• 4 years ago

They'll be kept company there by all the people who caused the 2008 US housing crisis.

mirntyfirty2• 4 years ago

I’d claim that tax misrepresentation would likely lead to some jail time, particularly for those that don’t have the funds for legal representation. As far as I can tell, the prevailing point of Bitcoin is to make capital gains.

Animats3• 4 years ago

Essentially if they find anyone sold crypto to unaccredited investors they would be engaging in illegal sales of a security.

Well, yes. That's the Howey test. It's pretty simple. A lot of crypto issuers liked to think it didn't apply to them, but the SEC has been saying consistently that it does. There's argument over whether crypto brokers, exchanges, or miners are subject to regulation. But anybody who created and issued a cryptocurrency is clearly making a public offering of a security.

The crypto community got away with a lot during the "line goes up" phase, because the SEC usually acts only when investors lose money. After a 2 trillion US dollar loss in market cap, that phase is over. There will be more complaints and more enforcement actions.

DennisP6• 4 years ago

So far at least, this is not the worst bear market ever in crypto. ETH right now is down about 80%, but in 2018 it dropped 94%.

tyrfing• 4 years ago

No, this is just a SEC vs CFTC turf war. Neither is willing to concede the "territory" to the other; the only notable part here is that the SEC still doesn't think ETH is settled. It's a minor TV interview, not something "huge".

https://www.klgates.com/CFTC-and-SEC-Perspectives-on-Cryptoc...

smohnot• 4 years ago

He said BTC was the only cryptocurrency he was comfortable saying was a commodity, while many were securities

it didn't address explicitly what all others were

“That’s the only one I’m going to say because I’m not going to talk about any one of these tokens”

https://twitter.com/SBF_FTX/status/1541565079992369155?s=20&...

null0pointer• 4 years ago

Thanks, headline is a bit misleading,

omginternets• 4 years ago

What’s the difference between a security and a commodity? And what does this distinction change for the SEC?

phabricator2• 4 years ago

The Howey Test

sshine2• 4 years ago

What’s the difference between a security and a commodity?

Securities: Stocks and Bonds

Commodities: Metals, Grains, and Oil

A commodity's defining feature is its interchangeability. One unit is essentially the same as another unit. To an orange juice company oranges are oranges, to an apple juice company apples are apples, and to an oil refinery one barrel of oil is a lot like any other barrel of oil. Commodities must meet certain minimum quality standards and markets do distinguish between different types of the same commodity. But for the most part it's about quantity.

https://www.findlaw.com/consumer/securities-law/securities-v...

A commodity is a basic good used in commerce that is interchangeable with other goods of the same type. Commodities are most often used as inputs in the production of other goods or services. The quality of a given commodity may differ slightly, but it is essentially uniform across producers.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/commodity.asp

And what does this distinction change for the SEC?

Good question.

This thread is full of suggestions. I couldn’t find a truly compelling one except that Bitcoin could fit the description of a commodity.

bedros• 4 years ago

Difference is scarcity

im3w1l• 4 years ago

A commodity is (traditionally) a standardized physical good. A security is a tradable contract. It could for example give you the right to a certain sum of money per year, or partial ownership of a company, or the right to buy something at a certain price.

Some stable coins fit the security definition pretty well since they come with a right to redeem for dollars. Other cryptos don't really fit either.

daydream• 4 years ago

Securities and commodities are regulated differently and subject to different laws.

sgent• 4 years ago

A commodity doesn't promise a return for holding it, a security does. If I buy a gold bar, in a year I have a gold bar, same with a bushel of wheat, or 1million yen.

Securities use resources to try and generate a return -- companies try to sell a product, bonds generate interest, etc.

wolframhempel• 4 years ago

The SEC and Wallstreet have been locked in an eternal cat and mouse game for decades. And given that Wallstreet has the money and hence the talent and options it tends to be a step ahead of the SEC.

I expect this will be even more true for crypto. While I believe that some regulation might be a good thing as it makes crypto safer for the wider public I am genuinely doubtful that the SEC has the capabilities or the right incentives to be that regulator.

ASlave2Gravity2• 4 years ago

I think it boils down to public adoption, right? Like, everyone, even the bell-hop, was telling me to buy. It was beyound insane. But they said that because they all saw the graphs. It made the news, etc. But I rarely meet people who will happily take BTC or what have you. Now, is this because it's still in geeksville, or because it's harder to pay taxes, or because its slow? Where do you draw the line on usability? We know why it was made.

kloch• 4 years ago

In this case the tension is not between SEC and Wall Street but between the SEC (which regulates stocks and bonds) and the CFTC (which regulates commodities and derivatives).

Most people in Wall Street and the crypto community want clearer regulations so they know what the rules are for specific coins/tokens and transactions. What we have now is a very slow Government trying to catch up with technology coupled with infighting between different regulators defending their own turf.

Fortunately there was a bill introduced in the US Senate (referenced in the article) that would clear up much of this, along with various taxation issues.

undersuit• 4 years ago

It's the same problem that the ATF has with regulating guns or the FDA with regulating drugs; classifications are inherently limited and once you define one I can now make something that doesn't fit your existing classifications.

Which is good, we don't want to give the government over-reaching powers, but we also want them to do something.

uncomputation• 4 years ago

Bitcoin has less foundation- or team-based leadership that have plagued other crypto projects. This leadership (eg Ethereum foundation) gives crypto projects the air of legitimacy, but also the impression, as Hinman put it, that some managerial work and direction is expected, tipping the scale towards security. If the network becomes decentralized to the point where no one party has sway over its direction (even a good one eg the move to proof of stake), only then can you consider it a commodity, at least in Hinman’s view.

Not only does this make sense but it also further speaks to the strength of the bitcoin project, specifically Satoshi’s decision to not be a public figure/BDFL. I doubt this security-commodity issue factored in specifically, but it was really a brilliant and largely unprecedented move that aligns with bitcoin’s political philosophy as well: no leaders.

Alex39172• 4 years ago

How is this any different than something like GRIN? I'm not involved in either community, but at least superficially they certainly look similar.

mistrial9• 4 years ago

GRIN does not move more than $1B USD per hour?

tromp2• 4 years ago

If anything, Grin looks more commodity like than Bitcoin, with no artificial cap on supply, and no financial reward for its creators.

mtoner23• 4 years ago

while it may be smart from a securities/legal/tax persepctive it also dooms bitcoin to be a useless coin. Transaction speeds abysmal and the energy usage is absurd. These could never be changed

chromatin• 4 years ago

Lightning Network is a layer 2 network on top of Bitcoin that is governed by smart contracts at the base layer and has transaction speed of seconds. It's increasingly used in place of base layer transactions for small to medium sized amounts (e.g. US$1 - $1000). Anything on the order of US$10k+ can reasonably transacted on the base layer, and when I am spending that much I don't mind a 10 minute confirmation time.

hnthrow1010• 4 years ago

The idea that Bitcoin has no leaders is a big lie that these regulators should be able to see through. You can take look at any of the well-known whales to see obvious evidence against that claim. They make the claim because it allows them to maintain plausible deniability while manipulating the market as much as they possibly can. I wouldn't trust anyone in finance who says they're not doing managerial work and direction; that work is required to make the stated goals work. It's about as big a red flag as when recruiters say "our company has no bosses and no management". It might fool some naive people, but those who are observant can see who's really in charge.

tboyd473• 4 years ago

If there are "leaders" in Bitcoin, it would not be the whales. It is not Proof of Stake where money buys you a voting right.

erdewit• 4 years ago

What makes Bitcoin a commodity is that nobody can issue more Bitcoin, other then from mining, just like with physical commodities. The market can still be manipulated by the big players but that is besides the point. When more of an asset can be issued (created from thin air) then it is a security.

lend0002• 4 years ago

You might as well be talking about the boogieman. Who are these whales who control the market? Why were so many mega-whales selling at $27K and lower this year, when they could have sold at the top? Michael Saylor is one of, if not the biggest crypto holder right now, and the dude is clueless and currently underwater in his position.

Talking about whales is just superstition for people who can't find any alpha in the markets. It's an excuse for why you didn't know the price was going to go in a certain direction. You see it a lot in amateur trading Discords and subreddits.

gesman• 4 years ago

Manipulating the price is not the same as controlling the project direction.

eric_cc• 4 years ago

Can you give a good example of how one of bitcoin’s “managers” changed bitcoin recently?

AtlasBarfed2• 4 years ago

If Ethereum can be changed from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake on a "whim", how is it not centralized in some capacity?

DennisP6• 4 years ago

That's quite a whim. It's been the plan since 2014.

mixedCase• 4 years ago

On a "whim" in so far as miners agree on the change.

kreetx• 4 years ago

Define whim, and how does it relate to being centralized? I don't think there is anyone forcing the miners to keep another Ethereum classic running.

kinakomochidayo8• 4 years ago

It was supposed to transition to PoS from the beginning.

DennisP6• 4 years ago

Bitcoin has a single popular client. There are people who work on that client.

Ethereum has five execution clients, developed by independent teams, and another five proof-of-stake clients, also developed by independent teams, plus an open community of researchers where anyone can participate. The Ethereum Foundation funds some of this, but not all of it.

If the various teams don't agree to do something, it won't get done. You can verify for yourself that no one party is in charge, simply by listening to the public dev calls.

0des2• 4 years ago

Bitcoin has a single popular client.

False.

splix2• 4 years ago

Not really. If one of the clients interpreted a part of the spec in a different way, event if they are right, they would have change it to follow an officially approved code because that's the consensus.

There are examples like https://github.com/openethereum/parity-ethereum/blob/55c90d4...

thinkmassive2• 4 years ago

Actively used alternative implementations:

https://github.com/btcsuite/btcd

https://bitcoin-s.org/

https://bcoin.io/

https://bitcore.io/

https://bitcoindevkit.org/

Melting_Harps• 4 years ago

Bitcoin has less foundation- or team-based leadership that have plagued other crypto projects.

It's designed that way, but it has been attempted before: under the guise of that name, no less. I just saw Charlie Schrem on a live stream a while ago, and he strikes me as the person who best represents those conmen. Many have falled by teh way side, others in to utter irrelevance, and then imbeciles like Bruce Fenton refuse to go away and still clings onto his 'foundation status' as though that gave him any legitimacy as he runs for office.

I'll just say this: Bitcoiners, especially early adopters, don't have any tolerance for these pseudo-thought leader BS, and nothing irks us more when someone tries to speak on behalf of the community. We vote with our hashing power and our nodes, nothing else matters. We may disagree about specific things, like LukeJRs refusal to let go of his smaller block idea, but the truth is this is a cohesive unit it that is bound by self-interest as much as is its about a central ethos: it's the most resilient community I've ever been a part of and I value it most because of it's refusal to be co-opted despite its MANY attempts, even by people who calling themselves a 'chief scientist' and was 2nd only to Satoshi--who I will remind you appealed to the community to not 'kick the hornet's nest' and then did exactly that in regards to using BTC to fund Wikileaks.

even a good one eg the move to proof of stake

You lost all credibility here.

daniel-cussen3• 4 years ago

I agree with this. I have said it's the only crypto worth participating in because it's the only crypto that originated for idealistic reasons.

In that capacity it is similar to gold, which in the Golden Age (something everybody talked about in Antiquity and I decided to believe, but I've never encountered anybody else believing in) was openly swapped around as little inventions (you can make all kinds of shit with gold, it's a miracle material, lubricant, any precision, single isotope, list goes on endlessly) and gifts, but then some assholes decided to start hoarding it and enslaving people to mine it, charging interest using it, weigh one gold gift against another saying they balance out, use it to pay for wars to amass more gold. And it became something we just hoard underground. In other cultures it's this stuff, like Kechwa (Inca) it was about worshipping the sun and sure enough it basically is the sweat from the sun because it only is created by stars in supernovas. Idealistic in its origin.

Except in satellites, in satellites it's used for all kinds of shit, the foil for reentry (silver and gold, but only the gold resisted reentry), as lubricant, for welding (4:1 gold to tin), for the electronics of course, as a conductor in some cases so wire, heat foil. And medicine, so dentistry a huge amount but also implants, gold-titanium alloys. And injections for rheumatism in a chemical composition. And anything that must not rust, the go-to is gold.

So all the other coins? They're shitcoins. There is only Bitcoin, everyone else just wanted to get rich quick. Satoshi never cashed out, I divine he committed suicide in 2015 embarrassed not by its success but in how much he owned by being the first to mine it. It was the only crypto that didn't get pre-mined, but he didn't get other people on board fast enough to avoid owning tons of it. So Lycurgus, too, he made the laws of Sparta so they would never be slaves in response to the end of the Golden Age and the constant threat of conquest--basically successful--but was embarrassed of benefitting by then becoming king, so he said "don't change the laws til I return" and left, and starved himself to die. And many say he never existed. Just like many say Satoshi never existed.

jrm4• 4 years ago

The dude in charge looks absolutely ridiculous -- but this is why I'm very interested in Richard Heart and his Hex / Pulse stuff.

If you "game theory" him out, I believe he adds up to being in crypto for idealistic reasons as well, despite the appearance of the methods he's using to get there.

Aaronstotle• 4 years ago

Monero had no pre-mine either, and addresses the bitcoin privacy gaps. Most cryptos are obviously get rich quick schemes, I don't think it means you should immediately discard every other token.

daniel-cussen3• 4 years ago

Well that speaks well of Monero, perhaps that is exceptional, apparently not...

I was wrong in discarding them. I would, in addition to apologizing, salvage my claim in the following terms: bitcoin is the gold standard, the first and foremost, just as every metal is unique and gold is gold and nothing else identical. But there can also be silver, and platinum, and rhenium, and ruthenium, and rhodium, and copper, and many others. Bitcoin was the first, and is unique, but is not the last.

eternauta3k• 4 years ago

It's ironic for a comment about Bitcoin to call people assholes for hoarding. Cryptocurrency is all about making a system which works because people act in their self-interest. If they wanted people to use it and not hoard it, they should've made it easier to spend, or harder to hoard, i.e. inflationary.

tromp2• 4 years ago

A fixed block subsidy, i.e. purely linear emission, is disinflationary, rather than inflationary, with the yearly supply inflation after n years at 1/n. That is large enough to deter speculation for several decades at least.

daniel-cussen3• 4 years ago

Hoarding is about intent, different from saving. Acaparar in Spanish. To take up all there is for yourself, so others have nothing and suffer in need. Whereas saving is sacrifice, so someday there can be something to give in an exceptional situation. Or in an exceptional opportunity, as in investment, but this is secondary, because the purpose of this secondary interpretation is subjugated to the primary interpretation, to eg invest to get a good return to at some point rescue an orphaned grandchild.

tboyd473• 4 years ago

That's a really interesting parallel with Greek history I've never heard before.

knicholes• 4 years ago

Does anyone know how this affects taxes?

drcode• 4 years ago

I think it would fall under capital gains either way, so shouldn't matter much. Not a tax lawyer though.

papercrane• 4 years ago

In the US? It doesn't at all. The SEC chair's opinion on if something is a community vs. a security has no bearing on what the IRS thinks. The distinction only really matters when deciding which agency is responsible for enforcing any regulations.

As far as the IRS is concerned they treat them the same for capital gains.

adrr• 4 years ago

I only think it only affects who can buy it. Example gold is a commodity and anyone can buy it. And unregulated security would require accredited investors.

colesantiago• 4 years ago

SEC Chair != SEC

This is just equivalent to 'employers opinions does not reflect my own'

omniglottal• 4 years ago

SEC chair delivering speech written by SEC lawyers, on the other hand... this == SEC

vmoore• 4 years ago

Finance newbie here, but what is a 'security'? I looked it up, but can't grok it despite people's best attempt to describe it. All the articles can't sum it up in an ELI5 way. What's the TL;DR way of describing a security, and how does BTC fare in this? Is BTC a security?

ianferrel2• 4 years ago

Under US law (Howey test) a security is something that

1. You invest money in

2. Along with others

3. With the expectation of profit

4. Derived from the efforts of others

ETA: (the others in #2 need not be the same others in #4)

ForHackernews• 4 years ago

Under this definition, surely all cryptocurrencies fail test #4.

Everyone is going to get rich and nobody is going to have to put in any effort, just HODL.

WAGMI! To the moon!

Shank• 4 years ago

Is BTC a security?

Probably not in the traditional sense. The difference Bitcoin has to most cryptocurrencies is that it was specifically designed with no "premined" blocks and no preordained rewards. In contrast, a lot of projects sold tokens through an "ICO" with a promise of a future project developed against it. ICOs are basically securities, because you're buying the token without actually any guarantee that the project delivers on what it needs to deliver on for the value to change.

In contrast, again, Bitcoin was just offered as a cryptocurrency, from the start. The first block encoded a current event to distinguish the fact that there aren't any rewards already allocated to creators. It was also launched with the complete product available from the start (sans network upgrades).

Note: I'm not saying that Bitcoin is good or anything. I'm just distinguishing between it and most other tokens. Bitcoin has governance systems in place and other systems that make it "more security like" but clearly the SEC chair doesn't seem to believe it crosses that line.

seoaeu• 4 years ago

The other replies give the technical definitions, but the high level picture is that a security is an investment opportunity. The issuer of a security has to follow a bunch of laws to ensure that said issuers don’t go around scamming everyday people

hajile• 4 years ago

It's always nice to know that such important things are never left in the hands of the ignorant masses and are instead left to the rich aristocracy who know what is best for lesser men.

nootropicat• 4 years ago

Way too many people hold various crypto for any action now. Sec can barely deal with Ripple and that's one of the easiest ones.

pazimzadeh• 4 years ago

From the original Ethereum pre-sale blog post: https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/07/22/launching-the-ether-sal...

Ether is a product, NOT a security or investment offering. Ether is simply a token useful for paying transaction fees or building or purchasing decentralized application services on the Ethereum platform; it does not give you voting rights over anything, and we make no guarantees of its future value.

bawolff2• 4 years ago

Just because they claim something doesn't make it true.

akritrime• 4 years ago

A claim like this was also the reason behind Howey Test being a thing.

paulmd• 4 years ago

Ah yes, the "this ROM is legal as long as you delete it before 24 hours after you download it!" clause. Everyone knows it's not a crime as long as you loudly yell THIS IS NOT A CRIME while doing it. After all why would someone say that if it's not true?!

AlexandrB2• 4 years ago

Same feel as "No copyright intended" disclaimers on YouTube videos a few years ago.

phabricator2• 4 years ago

Ether's confusing though because the SEC has explicitly said in the past that "offers and sales of Ether are not securities transactions." https://www.sec.gov/news/speech/speech-hinman-061418

Gensler's comments today suggest the opposite will be true?

nathias5• 4 years ago

Pretty idiotic that they can't make new categories for new tech and have to shoehorn it into the old.

JumpCrisscross5• 4 years ago

they can't make new categories for new tech and have to shoehorn it into the old

Nobody is doing that. For all the new techiness of crypto, its popular failure modes of pumps and dumps, rug pulls and promoters lying through their teeth is identical to the pre-Securities Act securities landscape. So for those narrow problems these proven solutions should work.

nathias5• 4 years ago

But as we can see from anything else, X when digital becomes completely different, it becomes at the same time possible to scale it, to automate it and it becomes international. I fear regulatory capture that will capture all the innovation and profits for US VCs (again).

gamblor9563• 4 years ago

The SEC cannot make new categories until and unless Congress passes a law either making new categories or authorizing the SEC to do so.

oldgradstudent• 4 years ago

Why do you need new categories when the old ones fit?

A Ponzi over Blockchain is still a Ponzi.

nathias5• 4 years ago

You must be the smartest boy alive.

stonogo• 4 years ago

The only 'new tech' is essentially math-based anti-counterfeit protection. Aside from that, this is all firmly traditional financial footwork; "____, but with computers" doesn't really move the needle.

Havoc• 4 years ago

That seems quite arbitrary

Cobragri2• 4 years ago

Commodities have no capped supply and fungible. GRIN resembles to commodity with its emmission model and fungibility feature as well.

legutierr2• 4 years ago

Commodities have no capped supply

Since when has this ever been true?

Silver is a commodity, is it not?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Thursday

Cobragri2• 4 years ago

That wikipedia article mentions derivative market silver,it is a contract based silver at futures excchanges.

Silver has a perpetual mining for thousand years, like gold.

riskneutral• 4 years ago

Way to fuel the Bitcoin maximalist, Gensler. Totally arbitrary.

CynicusRex• 4 years ago

That's like saying the Christian god is the true god, whereas in fact they're all equal nonsense.

12amxn12• 4 years ago

Bitcoin is a tool first, and a commodity second. I never "hold" bitcoin, or if I do is for an extremely short while. I've used it plenty of times for almost a decade in this fashion:

1. Get paid in BTC for a service or a product (or buy BTC with offshore money) 2. Sell to someone for an agreed on price 3. Get cash/local currency/supplies/whatever

Two thoughts:

- Lower hype on bitcoin is a good thing for me, as it will bring less attention to it from goverments. I just need a critical mass of people there are enough buyers/sellers/miners.

- The two things that worry me are: governance of the project, and the fact that bitcoin mining traffic can be detected (somewhat like torrents). So, if govts want, they could force the ISPs to check for traffic that may indicate mining, raid, and eventually kill all mining operations (China probably will). Most likely, some countries will be more lax on that.

Bitcoin is the only coin the SEC Chair will call a commodity

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