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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

#381

Post by lmm »

davorak wrote: post #380
lmm wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you think Gensler in official capacity should just dispense one-off soundbite determinations at the request of some clown grilling him? Because the whole point of the rule of law is that the law same law applies to any clown. If the head of securities law in the country can't tell you whether a basic thing is legal or not then why even bother having a congress and elections and any pretense that we live in s…

> Because the whole point of the rule of law is that the law same law applies to any clown. If the head of securities law in the country can't tell you whether a basic thing is legal or not then why even bother having a congress and elections and any pretense that we live in something other than a corrupt oligarchy? In the linked video the questioner is asking about about potential future cases/decisions and one reas…

> In the linked video the questioner is asking about about potential future cases/decisions and one reason not to comment on specific cases/decisions, as is what happened in the video[0], is that an agency does not want to telegraph their moves ahead of time, since that would give potential criminals a heads up that they are on a deadline and need to focus on cover up their crimes.

That's putting the cart before the horse. Catching criminals is supposed to be a means to an end; compliance with the law is supposed to be the end, and getting people to voluntarily stop doing crimes is a win. "We can't tell people what the law is because then they might stop breaking it" is absurd policy.

> If the questioner needs insight into how policing actions are decided they can ask about pervious cases/decisions and the reasoning that went into those pervious cases/decisions.

The whole reason people are arguing about this stuff is that there are no clear precedents (or there are multiple contradictory ones); crypto is similar to a lot of things but not exactly the same as any of them.

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

#382

Post by ryukoposting »

TimPC wrote: post #2

Crypto companies think they don't trade securities which is clearly wrong and contradicted by their own advertising. People buy crypto without a real use for crypto because they think they can sell it for more later. Everyone under the sun knows this. It's obviously a security and failing to register should be met by SEC cases like this one.

In the 90s people bought Beanie Babies because they thought they could sell them for more later. Are Beanie Babies securities?

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

#383

Post by retrocryptid »

sebzim4500 wrote: post #265
retrocryptid wrote: post #98

My experience with Coinbase led me to ask people "where do I sign up for the class action law suit?" so this is welcome news.

That's interesting. What did Coinbase do to you exactly?

Took US Dollars ostensibly to purchase bitcoin. A year later when bitcoin had appreciated, I asked for them to sell the bitcoin and give me US dollars back.

They said "no" and said that I fundamentally misunderstood what an exchange was. It exchanges US Dollars into Bitcoin, it does not convert Bitcoin into US dollars.

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

#384

Post by DirkH »

JohnFen wrote: post #144
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The drugs I've bought with cryptocurrency have been cheaper and of better quality than the drugs I've bought with dollars, by a wide margin. So there's that. The marketing you're talking about is for the investors. By the nature of the product, the users have powerful adversaries and are probably operating in secret. You can't expect their use cases to show up in the marketing, that would defeat the purpose. Sure, yo…

> in a world where they're more difficult to coordinate against due to a underdeveloped crypto. This is the part I don't understand. How does cryptocurrency make it easier to coordinate people than all the other tools we have to coordinate people?

Simple example is that if governments control finance you can't coordinate if the government is your opposition. If you start sharing resources as a means of coordinating, governments can always just compel the banks to shut down your account.

Governments can't shut down crypto nearly as easily due to its decentralized nature.

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

#385

Post by taeric »

jakear wrote: post #31
taeric wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could ask the same for a lot of things, though? Time shares, collectible card games, collectibles at large, fashion at large, etc. Not that I can or will wholly defend crypto. That just doesn't seem like a relevant complaint. I do question the desire for everlasting permanence of the blockchain. I know we like to keep real estate deed records and such going back as far as we can, but even there we have limited util…

> Time shares They bring the probability that you will be harassed by police/landowners/elements/civilians when residing in an area way down. Personally, I take the harassment and sleep on the street. But it's not easy and many would pay not to. > collectible card games You have fun when you play them. People pay to have fun. > collectibles at large Idk some people just get weird addictions. I put collectables at lar…

Do note that the SEC's argument is usually along the lines of "if anybody is buying this to make money, then it is potentially a security." The "common enterprise" part makes it a bit different, but only a bit.

Also note that time shares typically are securities, in my understanding. In contrast to a house, which is not. My argument there wasn't to identify some other things that are or are not securities, but "things that are kinda useless." In the case of timeshares, I'd say they are actively more harm than good.

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

#386

Post by davorak »

lmm wrote: post #381
davorak wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the whole point of the rule of law is that the law same law applies to any clown. If the head of securities law in the country can't tell you whether a basic thing is legal or not then why even bother having a congress and elections and any pretense that we live in something other than a corrupt oligarchy? In the linked video the questioner is asking about about potential future cases/decisions and one reas…

> In the linked video the questioner is asking about about potential future cases/decisions and one reason not to comment on specific cases/decisions, as is what happened in the video[0], is that an agency does not want to telegraph their moves ahead of time, since that would give potential criminals a heads up that they are on a deadline and need to focus on cover up their crimes. That's putting the cart before the…

> That's putting the cart before the horse. Catching criminals is supposed to be a means to an end; compliance with the law is supposed to be the end, and getting people to voluntarily stop doing crimes is a win. "We can't tell people what the law is because then they might stop breaking it" is absurd policy.

The questioner was not asking about what the law was. They were asking a future potential case or enforcement action.

The questioner in the video could have asked about the law and the details and how it has historically been enforced. They did not though. If they did and questions were still dodged then I might agree with what you are putting out here. At the very least I would think the answerer is not well versed on the topic at hand, but I would want the answer to be straight forward with that.

> The whole reason people are arguing about this stuff is that there are no clear precedents (or there are multiple contradictory ones); crypto is similar to a lot of things but not exactly the same as any of them.

I do not know about that. I think the majority of new crypto coins that have made it into the ads I see are scams, probably because the ones that are scams push for advertisement more. Of those they seem to fall into pyramid scheme and obvious security that would probably run foul of other laws as well. In these cases if a lawyer is not giving a clear answer then you need to hire a new lawyer.

Outside the obvious scams I assume there are people who are at best skirting the law at best and some are turning a blind eye, pretending the law is confusing on the topic when it is really not.

So far it seems like the SEC is ruling and enforcing the above cases, clear cut cases. If you have a part of the current enforcement that is on something that is ambiguous rather than pretty clear cut then I would be interested what makes it ambiguous and potentially reading more into it.

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

#387

Post by fintechie »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #377

Looks like the US Govt is going to eliminate the competition before replacing US Currency with its own crypto, likely developed and administered by a third party because the government sucks at building stuff.

And apparently that 3rd party just forked Avalanche....

https://cointelegraph.com/news/federal-reserve-s-fednow-will...

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

#388

Post by shermanyo »

paulddraper wrote: post #215
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…

> Crypto currency is a commodity Could you explain this to me? Are there any other examples of non-physical commodities?

Is music an example of a non-physical commodity?

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

#389

Post by jrm4 »

hirako2000 wrote: post #261
JohnFen wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mad because some entrepreneurs makes the effort to build legitimate business entities, and what certain governments find to do is any scheme to keep them out of legitimity. This isn't what it looks like to me. It looks to me like the entire point of cyptocurrency was to complete route around regulations that these people thought were too onerous. That's not building a "legitimate" business, that's taking a risk and…

Entrepreneur are risk takers, and they do move the needle. We easily forget to thank them. Would you say the same about music streaming, as companies were launching services without all the due dues, but knew they would finally have leverage once they have a significant user base to negociate deals for legitimate offerings? Anyhow those big risk takers are not losing because of the roulette factor here, they are hit…

No, I respect crypto people much more than music streaming, which was and is guaranteed exploitation and screwing people over. At least with crypto, it's at least plausible that you actually might help people.

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

#390

Post by testfoobar »

jcranmer wrote: post #120
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…

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…

What is a plausible range of outcomes for Coinbase here?
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