Live data from Hacker News

SEC charges Impact Theory for unregistered offering of NFTs

sec.gov

171–180 of 257 posts

Re: SEC charges Impact Theory for unregistered offering of NFTs

#171

Some people argue with baseball, pokemon or whatever cards. I mean they have at least more or less a real usecase. But how about rare sneakers? The are really just for collecting and trading.

Wait, what’s the real usecase for baseball cards beyond collecting and reading? Asking as a baseball fan

They can be used in shrines that produce the finite Baseball Energy.

Re: SEC charges Impact Theory for unregistered offering of NFTs

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its also worth nothing that the SEC is losing in court, losing the support of Congress and losing the support of the White House specifically as more people, including judges, notice this lack of distinction and the SEC’s unwillingness (and inability) to describe why there is a distinction there is either a way to issue crypto collections and collect money for them without being a security, or all other collections s…

You seem to be very keen on making this rather dubious point all over this thread. Certainly more motivated than I would consider “normal” for someone just wishing to weigh in on a topic they care about. Are you connected with this, or just having a particularly manic day?

low key want to see the entire sneakerhead drop industry convulse under securities fraud and unlicensed securities exchange charges

Re: SEC charges Impact Theory for unregistered offering of NFTs

#173
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really appreciate the way the Howey Test matches the regulatory purpose, its operationalist approach to the question. That it's stood up to nearly a century of scammer "innovation" is admirable. It does have the drawback of requiring some interpretation, some thought. But I think that's necessary. Rather than requiring regulators to keep creating ever-broader definitions of "security", patching every scammer hole,…

Not trying to kill the vibe of your comment, I just want to point out that the burden of proof historically has fallen on the accuser, the regulator, the plaintiff, (point is: not the defendant,) to prove that some behavior is illegal and problematic. So I’m not sure I agree that it’s good to foster a regulatory regime where everyone trying to innovate is questioning whether the political winds will change in the fut…

The burden of proof to prove a crime still falls on the accuser. Nothing has changed there.

I also don't think the interpretation has changed at all. We're still using the Howey test. The SEC took no immediate position on the cryptoetcetera community's various inventions, but they certainly didn't give anything their approval that they have since withdrawn. I'll note how much the more socially legitimate end of that community have been asking for "regulatory clarity".

The problem is that they now have clarity and don't like it. And I'm sure they don't. They were hoping to sweep aside the regulatory regime set up in 1934, which was in response to the crash of 1929. But I don't think we need any particular safe harbor for people who tried to dodge regulators and lost.

Re: SEC charges Impact Theory for unregistered offering of NFTs

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, to put it in terms of the Howey test: eating lunch is not a common enterprise , and not dying of hunger is not an expectation of profit .

> …and not dying of hunger is not an expectation of profit. Presently, although with maybe another couple decades at our current clip, we’ll all live to see a world where our great-grandkids will all be employed to Elon Musk’s preserved head in a jar—mining minerals on Mars in exchange for bunkbeds in the old mineshaft and a handshake promise you won’t dye of hunger. The pension plan is an opportunity to purchase “Vi…

J/k obviously. It would be branded “MeatX” and the living arrangements would involve some kind of “pod”.

Re: SEC charges Impact Theory for unregistered offering of NFTs

#175

Some people argue with baseball, pokemon or whatever cards. I mean they have at least more or less a real usecase. But how about rare sneakers? The are really just for collecting and trading.

The difference is that no one selling baseball cards or sneakers is saying "if you buy this you get a share of my entire business".

Re: SEC charges Impact Theory for unregistered offering of NFTs

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to offer some evidence of that? I haven't heard that and I am in the vertical. I agree that Impact Theory was selling securities, and I think it's pretty clear. But bored apes a security? I don't think many share that opinion. How is it any different than art or pokemon cards? People buy both all the time with the expectation they go up in price.

Do the Pokémon card makers make money continuously as the cards change hands?

No and bored apes don't either. Royalties on NFT sales have mostly gone away now when big marketplaces like Blur started ignoring them.

Re: SEC charges Impact Theory for unregistered offering of NFTs

#177

Not being from the US, this is probably a stupid question. But why can't people in the US sell willingly and freely sell things (legitimate or otherwise) to other willing buyers without government interference/participation? I guess I used to think the US was the "land of the free" I guess I understood that people used this phrase in a literal way. Im wondering, when American's use the phrase "land of the free" perha…

"Can't people in the US go out and shoot other people, because it is the land of the free?"

No, there are still laws, and fraud is illegal.

Re: SEC charges Impact Theory for unregistered offering of NFTs

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be very keen on making this rather dubious point all over this thread. Certainly more motivated than I would consider “normal” for someone just wishing to weigh in on a topic they care about. Are you connected with this, or just having a particularly manic day?

low key want to see the entire sneakerhead drop industry convulse under securities fraud and unlicensed securities exchange charges

One key difference between MTG cards (or baseball cards, or most any traditional collectible item) and NFTs: If the SEC shut down Wizards of the Coast and/or caused them to radically alter their businesses, old Magic cards would likely rise in value as a result, rather than cease having any material value whatsoever, as is the case with most digital assets.

Re: SEC charges Impact Theory for unregistered offering of NFTs

#179
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do NFTs fail to meet the Howey Test?

Easy. Let's start by looking at what typical tokens are. A fungible token is simply a store of the following records: (public key, amount) There is a stored procedure that lets anyone with the private key to lower the "amount" value on their row and increase the "amount" value on another row by the same amount. There's no tracking of which part of the amount came from where, the "tokens" are fungible. Now let's look…

Since this was downvoted, a simpler explanation.

Not all ownership denotes a security. If you own (and own can often be interpreted simply around having control over) a thing, you can sell it without that necessarily being a security. That's why the test is not "can it be sold".

Re: SEC charges Impact Theory for unregistered offering of NFTs

#180
post #116

NFTs were supposed to be an end-run around the Howey Test. ICOs were clearly securities offerings, and the SEC shut down most of those. NFTs were specifically designed to evade that test, by claiming they were really "digital artworks". This one, though, was clearly marketed as Make Money Fast. The Securities Act of 1934 has a "duck test" definition of security - if it is marketed, bought, sold, and held as a money-m…

> The Securities Act of 1934 has a "duck test" definition of security - if it is marketed, bought, sold, and held as a money-making thing, it's a security That doesn't seem right. You're missing a really fundamental part of what makes a security a security. Let's steal the cut phrase from investopedia > an investment contract, for the purposes of the Securities Act means a contract, transaction or scheme whereby a pe…

The good news is that judges can read the law and interpret it without having a myopic focus on specific wordings. They also don't use investopedia as a legally-binding source.

Whether an NFT (or any other crypto token) is a security is still very much up in the air, and I am assuming is not able to be uniformly defined.

People making noises like "you are investing in a project" and "there will be airdrops to NFT holders" sure seem like they are trying to run an unregistered securities offering. On the other hand, tokens like LINK (which you spend to do call APIs) and NFTs that are sold purely for the art don't really seem like securities. Even tokens like ETH or BTC could be considered currencies/commodities rather than securities despite all of the "project" language.

Post reply on HN