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US SEC sues Coinbase, one day after suing Binance

reuters.com

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Re: US SEC sues Coinbase, one day after suing Binance

#231

Post by ryathal »

mulmen wrote: post #163
dcow wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, I think your understanding is behind the curve. Even the SEC says BTC itself is a commodity. You consume a BTC by using/trading it. You consume gold or maple syrup by using/trading it. Just because the uses are a little different doesn't mean it's incompatible with the definition of commodity. If I started using gold in a nonsensical way you wouldn't start saying "oh now it's a security", would you?

I think the hangup with BTC as a commodity is that I can make a loaf of bread with wheat and eat it and the amount of wheat in the world is depleted as a result. Similarly I can use gold to build a cell phone or some jewelry and while it is possible to recover it isn't as simple as trading BTC. How is a BTC consumed ?

BTC is consumed when someone forgets their password.

Re: US SEC sues Coinbase, one day after suing Binance

#232

Post by jahewson »

Analemma_ wrote: post #155
EA-3167 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost unbelievable that someone would put something so monumentally incriminating in writing, but there it is. Those boys are doomed.

A bunch of people have speculated that this was a CYA move. I mean, if you get hired as the Compliance Officer for a company which clearly has no interest in compliance and only hired you to give a facade of respectability, you probably want to have a paper trail indicating "I clearly communicated that this was against the law, and they ignored me" for when the cops inevitably come.

Nothing says “innocent” like observing your criminality before getting right back to participating in the crime.

Re: US SEC sues Coinbase, one day after suing Binance

#233

Post by awaythrow483 »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #10

Always interesting how crypto prices tank after legal action is announced against exchanges. Isn't the whole point to be decentralized in the first place? Hard to believe the whole dip is due to people wanting to get their tokens off the exchanges.

Price is up today

Re: US SEC sues Coinbase, one day after suing Binance

#234

Post by throw9away6 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #210
ohgodplsno wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yes, evading capital controls is illegal, part of the informal economy in large parts of the world, and very helpful to many people. I also think there are useful legal uses, but yes - where crypto has the best comparative advantage is when people are trying to circumvent harmful laws. Not every country is a (relatively) well-run procedural democracy. Crypto helps people route around that.

Also in low trust transactions. Often you have low trust buyers that need to pay via irreversible transactions and crypto is cheaper and more secure

Re: US SEC sues Coinbase, one day after suing Binance

#235

Post by [deleted] »

butlerm wrote: post #48

If you look up the definitions of "security", "financial instrument", "commodity", and "currency", it is pretty clear that a plain vanilla crypto-currency like Bitcoin is no ordinary security nor a financial instrument. It is not a claim on something else, even less so than a traditional bank note. It is more like a commodity. Since when is "aluminum" a security? A crypto currency business however may be engaged in t…

[deleted]

Re: US SEC sues Coinbase, one day after suing Binance

#236

Post by George83728 »

mrcode007 wrote: post #128
jcranmer wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SEC isn't suing Coinbase over Bitcoin. They're suing under two things: 1. Unregistered exchange for several tokens the SEC believes are securities: > This includes, but is not limited to, the units of each of the crypto asset securities further described below—with trading symbols SOL, ADA, MATIC, FIL, SAND, AXS, CHZ, FLOW, ICP, NEAR, VGX, DASH, and NEXO—(the “Crypto Asset Securities”). 2. Unregistered sale of securi…

Very good points. People often go a long way to argue against the Howey test. The best example is Howey Co case. If someone is a lawyer dealing in securities and acting as an advisor I would have expected them to be familiar with the law. Coinbase issuing public statements to SEC “tell us what is a security” were basically a ploy or the lawyers involved were extremely inexperienced. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SE…

> Coinbase issuing public statements to SEC “tell us what is a security” were basically a ploy or the lawyers involved were extremely inexperienced.

I take it as a stunt intended shift the layman's perception of Coinbase's legal responsibilities onto the SEC. They're counting on cryptobros using this "SEC won't tell us what's legal" talking point to affect favorable political / legislative change.

But newsflash: government regulators aren't obliged to act as your legal council.

Re: US SEC sues Coinbase, one day after suing Binance

#237

Post by awaythrow483 »

paulpauper wrote: post #36

Crypto is like the worst investment ever: huge legal risk, does not hedge inflation, not a safeguard in crisis, does not benefit from tech/ai boom, does not generate profits. Only downside, no upside, no strengths, only weaknesses. the chart is only one direction: down The obvious weakness of bitcoin relative to QQQ demonstrates this. A daytrading pair trade method that shorts Bitcoin in market hours and goes long qq…

This is an obvious troll. Bitcoin has absolutely stomped $QQQ of $NDX over this period as basically every other person here is pointing out.

Re: US SEC sues Coinbase, one day after suing Binance

#238

Post by JumpCrisscross »

whimsicalism wrote: post #162
this_user wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more a case that anyone who was involved in crypto early, and who has actually taken the time to understand the technology, has realised about a decade ago that crypto currencies are mostly useless. But then people had they idea that they could still make money from it by grifting people if they just added layer upon layer of complexity in order to disguise the ultimate uselessness of the underlying tech…

> I think it's more a case that anyone who was involved in crypto early, and who has actually taken the time to understand the technology, has realised about a decade ago that crypto currencies are mostly useless. I don't know what it is about crypto that makes HN commentators want to make the most ridiculous, put-downy statements without evidence to back it up. Crypto is not mostly useless, it is just that people do…

> Crypto is not mostly useless, it is just that people don't like the uses

Crypto has legitimate use as a rebel medium. It’s also plagued with criminality. Its promoters had a decade to clean up its act and refuse to self regulate.

That’s soured the public’s mood towards the whole enterprise. If crypto’s benefits are niche, its development should be niche. And if its sole beneficiaries are people in failing foreign countries, it might make sense to put the whole thing under the aegis of State versus continuing to create chaos from the private sector.

Re: US SEC sues Coinbase, one day after suing Binance

#239

Post by mjburgess »

x86x87 wrote: post #218
modeless wrote: post #160

The specific crypto tokens they are classifying as securities are: SOL, ADA, MATIC, FIL, SAND, AXS, CHZ, FLOW, ICP, NEAR, VGX, DASH, and NEXO. Of course they say "not limited to" to hedge their bets, but those are the ones they specifically mention. This is the exact "regulatory clarity" Coinbase has been asking for, but the SEC prefers to sit on their hands for years (while investors are "harmed") and then sue, rath…

Hah. Protecting investors. What a bunch of croc. This was never about protecting investors. If it was they would have issues the guidance 5 years ago. This is about blowing up crypto in general by removing the on/off ramps (ie the exchanges). Also: mandatory crypto is bad for the environment and it consumes more power than the whole country of Argentina! /s But nobody seems to care or talk about how much power crapGP…

This is such a dangerous attitude.

The reason regulators have waited years, despite the facts of the matter being legally obvious, is not wanting to be blamed for blowing up the whole ponzi house-of-cards. They've waited until enough such houses blew up on their own, that they feel "the facts have been demonstrated".

If you want to know why they didnt "blow up crypto", "five years ago", its because of you -- and this attitude.

Without it, vast swathes of online grifts that have ruined peoeple's lives wouldve been blown out the water by now.

Re: US SEC sues Coinbase, one day after suing Binance

#240

Post by [deleted] »

potatototoo99 wrote: post #177
dcow wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious: is "bitcoin" being used by the SEC as a general term to mean "all cryptos that fundamentally employ a work-based consensus algorithm", or "pure" cryptos or whatever? Or is it not yet clear to the SEC that there are more instances of Nakamoto consensus networks out there and not everything other than BTC is a security? I agree that staked projects and derivative projects are securities since they are fundamen…

Of course not everything other than bitcoin is a security. My private blockchain no one knows about is not a security. It's not a universal law of the universe. What they mean is every coin/token they looked at. If asked to evaluate litecoin for example probably they'd say it's not a security as well. They don't need to pass judgement on each of the thousands of coins individually because definitions and common sense…

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