Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US SEC sues Coinbase, one day after suing Binance

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 443 posts

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

#291

Post by thisgoesnowhere »

ethanbond wrote: post #165
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?

Commodities are usually raw/close-to-raw inputs into some process. Bitcoin doesn’t really meet that, but again the whole point is recent technological innovations haven’t really settled into the language yet. And again, that is by design of both the instruments themselves and the massive PR campaigns/grifts around them. The whole trick is attempting to position these things as “the half of the definition of commodity…

This is my read as well. However,I think if you regulate the security like stuff in the same way we regulate existing financial instruments the whole thing collapses anyways, so who really cares what we call this specific coin.

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

#292

Post by whimsicalism »

JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #273
whimsicalism wrote: post #162

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. 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 absolutely massive for avoiding capital controls in countries with inflation Inflation hedge means mantaining parity against a weighted basket of stable currencies such as USD/EUR/CHF/JPY. Maybe gold? Bitcoin didn't mantain parity at all, it's up some 20,000% since 2013 and +∞ since its inception. So crypto failed as inflation hedge too, because the world of finance is very specific, you can't say 'this…

> Bitcoin didn't mantain parity at all, it's up some 20,000% since 2013 and +∞ since its inception.

Dai and other stablecoins maintain parity and are what is mostly used.

> It also failed as a tool for capital controls and tax evasion because if you do that sort of things you don't want publicity...what happened is that crypto-bros and crypto-enthusiast went on to scream off the top of their lungs and it resulted in the death of the largest capital control avoidance use case: getting money out of China.

I don't know what to tell you, these are heavily used behind-the-scenes in the dollar black market in places like Argentina, etc.

> Nobody uses Crypto for getting money out of China anymore.

Yeah, the informal economy is not actually very large in China, it's not a good example.

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

#293

Post by mjburgess »

foodjinn wrote: post #283
mjburgess wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The SEC had a hand in the subprime mortgage crisis, quite literally there is no reason to believe they are regulating on the behalf of anyone except the large banks. They absolutely are not regulating to help "investors" they are regulating to protect big banks like JPMC, just like they did in 08.

This is genuinely ridiculous. The "big banks" can buy up and own as much of the crytpo ecosystem as they desire, and all the "whales" are "institutional billionaires".

Crypto has, for years, been held by "the elite" -- and Andreessen et al. are exactly using it as a system to commit securities fraud.

The direction of wealth flow in crypto is from late retail entrants to billionaire major holders who cash out using late entrants.

The idea that the SEC, post-collapse-after-collapse, is here to "protect JP Morgan"... i mean, this is a patent lie, misdirection, and act of desperation in trying to set up the SEC as the scapegaot for this exploitative system's failure.

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

#294

Post by dcow »

JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #276
lottin wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what on earth is a digital commodity? I think the whole concept of digital commodity is nonsensical. A commodity is a product. Products are either consumed or used as raw materials. A digital commodity is not a product. It can't be consumed or used, because it's entirely imaginary. I think a better term is "abstract unit of account".

You can consume a Fortnite skin or a Call of Duty weapon. The point is that you cannot consume crypto, it's a problem which is understood inside the community, that's why the push for NFTs which started as legitimate art to enjoy on huge 8K screens or VR headsets but quickly ended up becoming Twitter avatars built for the purpose of trading and offloading to a bigger fool.

You consume it by trading it or, for a direct analog to your example, by showing off your wallet balance. Your Fortnite skin is no more consumable than a BTC. It just has a different value and use.

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

#295

Post by foodjinn »

detrites wrote: post #136
mrkramer wrote: post #65

Grace period of unregulated crypto is over. Brace yourself, SEC is coming!

The SEC issues fines. To them it's taking a cut, to Binance etc, it's operating expenses. These "enforcements" are more like protection money paid to gangsters. The SEC could have created clarity a decade ago. It's not in their interest to do so, plain and simple. They are incentivised financially, to persist in creating a lack of clarity, and then randomly "enforcing" inconsistently to extract multi-millions off of…

Also worth pointing out the SEC's involvement in the subprime mortgage collapse.

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

#296

Post by seydor »

hirako2000 wrote: post #271
seydor wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's not like these onramps served the real purpose of digital currency. People don't buy bitcoin in order to pay for services, they buy it to speculate. Bitcoin could succeed even without onramps; digital workers can easily accept bitcoin if they care, which over time will be traded with goods in the physical world with other people who care. That's grass roots deployment, not VC-backed "legitimate" ponzi exchanges.…

The offramp / onramp is necessary so long as we have two systems, we need a gate between the two, even if crypto had 10 times its current level of trading transactions, as in trading of good or services for crypto, there would still be a large imbalance where more income would be taking fiat in. Adoption is happening, surely less so or far slower in the developed nations like in the US, but is not contracting globall…

If bitcoin was valued, banks would create the onramps. The current, speculation -based exchanges are putting the cart before the horse

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

#297

Post by thisgoesnowhere »

m00dy wrote: post #78
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…

No one said Bitcoin is a security...The issue is that howey test might be too old to work on cryptos.

What is too old about it?

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

#298

Post by yieldcrv »

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…

The stance isn’t about whether Howey can be applied literally everywhere

The stance is that applying it to digital tokens as unregistered securities means applying it to other places, like Nike shoes and baseball cards, just because any random individual expected to profit when they bought one

that this framework is not applied everywhere, specifically how congress exempted spot commodities and commodities derivatives from the SEC framework specifically because it was untenable

That there is a difference between a digital commodity and a digital security that is mutually exclusive, but the SEC has provided no way of understanding that distinction, and now has resorted to just arbitrarily claiming random assets are securities in cases against the people that trade those assets, instead of taking up cases against the issuers of those assets and letting those issuers defend themselves or reach a definitive conclusion

That it is impossible to comply if it was applied everywhere, as registered security status inherits tons of unrelated regulations to protect incumbent intermediaries

That the SEC will never achieve congress’ delegated mission of investor protection and only hurt investors

And that actually inconveniencing everyone will put this framework under a constitutional test that the SEC probably needs to avoid, but I’m all the SEC going after the entire sneaker trading ecosystem as unregistered broker dealers as fallout to their crusade just to prove they aren’t just trying to debilitate crypto

(The staking program has a separate evaluation)

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

#299

Post by freejazz »

whimsicalism wrote: post #224
arcticbull wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not answering the question. Why do you think Gensler in official capacity should just dispense one-off soundbite determinations at the request of some clown grilling him? > It should be easy yes or no from the lawyers... When has that ever been the case, and why should it be the case now? [edit] The law is not just what's written but the entirely of case law. The SEC has provided a framework for analysis of se…

It is not at all surprising to me that he would refuse to answer the question, but the precise reason he is doing that is so that the SEC has freedom of movement to regulate without being pinned down by public statements he has made in front of congress. But that entire notion belies the idea that the regulations are super clear or predictable. The whole reason for this kind of maneuver is because the regulations are…

You don't seem to understand that what he says isn't binding on the SEC

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

#300

Post by [deleted] »

whimsicalism wrote: post #184
qeternity wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was obvious to a lot of people who were wondering what was taking regulators so long.

Interesting, maybe you should let Gensler know that the law is much more obvious than he appears to realize [0] [0]: https://youtu.be/VhA1dZXeao0?t=58

[deleted]
Post reply on HN