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SEC Claims All of Ethereum Falls Under US Jurisdiction

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Re: SEC Claims All of Ethereum Falls Under US Jurisdiction

#41

Post by jbverschoor »

mattwilsonn888 wrote: post #30

> “validated by a network of nodes on the Ethereum blockchain, which are clustered more densely in the United States than in any other country.” The SEC then concludes: “As a result, those transactions took place in the United States.” I wonder what other legal implications this precedent has (if it holds). I probably won't think of any before hitting send on this comment, but this seems like the type of claim suffic…

This is also how companies like Optiver 'legally' make 'decisions' in 'other countries' (run some code to execute a transaction on a server somewhere else).

If you used mechanical turk, where is the task legally completed?

I guess it's just loopholes against loopholes? Gary is a smart guy. He gave some excellent lectures about all this.

Re: SEC Claims All of Ethereum Falls Under US Jurisdiction

#42

Post by Ekaros »

JohnHaugeland wrote: post #6
71a54xd wrote: post #4

Is this a joke? This is patently insane - the boneheaded logic behind this is unprecedented. Granted, looks like PoS might be DOA. PoW would've made this kind of draconian tom-foolery much more difficult.

so i don't mean to seem rude, but, i'm not really sure what other options there are if ethereum isn't bound by us law, is it that they should be bound by someone else's law, or not at all? like, you know that if you're a german person in france, and you make a visa transaction, because visa is an american company, they still have american requirements, right? so i'm not being sarcastic. i'm really genuinely asking. w…

Ethereum itself probably isn't bound. But transactions there in would be. Now where the jurisdiction would be is messy thing. But all parties in single country is pretty clear even if things happened on the chain. With some bigger entity and customer, for EU likely if the entity has any presence in the customers country. With multiple parties it is bit messy. But still should be able to find it out.

Re: SEC Claims All of Ethereum Falls Under US Jurisdiction

#43

Post by Ekaros »

mattwilsonn888 wrote: post #30

> “validated by a network of nodes on the Ethereum blockchain, which are clustered more densely in the United States than in any other country.” The SEC then concludes: “As a result, those transactions took place in the United States.” I wonder what other legal implications this precedent has (if it holds). I probably won't think of any before hitting send on this comment, but this seems like the type of claim suffic…

The reverse of this is interesting. IF large number of validators moved out from USA servers. Would then the transactions be outside USA? And would someone track at all times where the majority or validators are? Or likely plurality?

Re: SEC Claims All of Ethereum Falls Under US Jurisdiction

#44

Post by ETH_start »

boc wrote: post #40
ETH_start wrote: post #35

This is going to encourage US-based Ethereum users to stop runnning nodes, and users outside of the US to start running nodes, just to weaken the SEC's outrageous argument. The narrow-minded attempt by the SEC expand its jurisdiction, and by extension, budget, is going to cause long-term harm to US innovation and competitiveness. Another option is for the entire Ethereum network to cloak itself behind an onion-routin…

I’d make the opposite argument. Losing ETH will allow US devs and companies to work on actual technologies which are useful for society broadly.

I assume you're not familiar with the developments in the space, like the growth of stablecoins ($20 billion to $140 billion in two years) and their proliferation across numerous domains and developing economies.

This is extremely consequential to US national interests, as at the moment, the USD is the primary collateral backing stablecoins, which means that stablecoins could usher hyper-dollarization as a result of their ability to extend the USD's reach to all corners of the world.

More generally, a free market generally works better than the government dictating, on the basis of centralized binding judgments on what is useful, that particular technologies cannot be worked on.

The former is consistent with US values and the latter is the province of top-down controlled societies like the PRC. The latter lacks the humility to acknowledge that you may not know everything and you may support the wrong centrally imposed plan on other people.

Re: SEC Claims All of Ethereum Falls Under US Jurisdiction

#45

Post by herbst »

mattwilsonn888 wrote: post #30

> “validated by a network of nodes on the Ethereum blockchain, which are clustered more densely in the United States than in any other country.” The SEC then concludes: “As a result, those transactions took place in the United States.” I wonder what other legal implications this precedent has (if it holds). I probably won't think of any before hitting send on this comment, but this seems like the type of claim suffic…

When you open an bank account anywhere in Europe you need to specifically sign that your money is not from the US or go through many extra hoops and maybe get a no. I wonder if that is also affected from this.

Re: SEC Claims All of Ethereum Falls Under US Jurisdiction

#46

Post by herbst »

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #3

This sounds like bad news but I see it as good news. The only way the SEC can go after fraudsters is to have jurisdiction over what they have done. The SEC can now go after the frauds against Ethereum users no matter where the fraud was committed. Crypto will never be a legitimate investment class if people can't trust that they will get their investment back. It's also impossible for it grow to fill a need without t…

How about the US not fucking around in other countries jurisdictions? I for one have no association with the US and don't plan on having one just because I may own ETH

Re: SEC Claims All of Ethereum Falls Under US Jurisdiction

#47

Post by bendews »

mw888 wrote: post #29
bendews wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but they can't force you to decrypt it if the key is lost or you don't give in. A very US-centric view is it not? Many places can force you to decrypt something by law. In fact the US does on entry to the country and can refuse entry if you do not comply. > there ain't shit they can do to actually enforce that demand. Watch forks become more commonplace and "official" forks being recognised and non-official forks b…

> Courts forcing forks I wouldn’t be so sure about that, unless you are equally convicted in that court’s jurisdiction’s conviction to outright ban the whole chain from use - because as soon as two courts mandate two different forks, one of them will be banning a chain that the rest of the globe has consensus on. It’s a lot like banning a whole region from sending mail because one person in that region got caught mai…

Right - but nothing is stopping them from making that law. Countries aren't simply going to adhere to a digital currencies protocol or allow it to avoid regulation because otherwise it goes against the "community spirit".

Here we are talking about the hypothetical situation of the U.S claiming complete jurisdiction of Ethereum. The U.S could make whatever laws it likes around the usage of Ethereum, legislate that all nodes have to adhere to these laws and job is done. The rest of the world can say "lolbye" and continue using it like nothing has happened, but in the U.S they would likely have to fork and create a new chain, and those who want to use it legally in the U.S would also have to use this new U.S-regulated chain. From there they can then implement processes to reverse transactions, introduce identification requirements etc.

Re: SEC Claims All of Ethereum Falls Under US Jurisdiction

#48

Post by herbst »

JohnHaugeland wrote: post #14
yucky wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Google a US company? Ethereum is an open source protocol with an unknown number of applications. I'm not sure this works as an analogy.

I'm discussing the law, not an analogy. It's a real system that was made in the United States. You don't have to be a company to be subject to the law. If you make something in a country, it's subject to that country's laws. Think about it: you're basically suggesting that if you call something "a protocol," somehow it's no longer subject to the rule of law. We go through "well yeah but it's not a" every couple of ye…

> If you make something in a country, it's subject to that country's laws.

I don't know how this would be true. If anything operating from a country makes you subject to their law.

I've wrote plenty of software while travelling. But I operate it from my homebase. That's a huge difference

Re: SEC Claims All of Ethereum Falls Under US Jurisdiction

#49

Post by herbst »

JohnHaugeland wrote: post #6
71a54xd wrote: post #4

Is this a joke? This is patently insane - the boneheaded logic behind this is unprecedented. Granted, looks like PoS might be DOA. PoW would've made this kind of draconian tom-foolery much more difficult.

so i don't mean to seem rude, but, i'm not really sure what other options there are if ethereum isn't bound by us law, is it that they should be bound by someone else's law, or not at all? like, you know that if you're a german person in france, and you make a visa transaction, because visa is an american company, they still have american requirements, right? so i'm not being sarcastic. i'm really genuinely asking. w…

> like, you know that if you're a german person in france, and you make a visa transaction, because visa is an american company, they still have american requirements, right?

But how is Ethereum an American company? How does that even compare? When I use visa I signed up for their bullshit. When using Ethereum I never agreed to the US intercepting my data just because a relevant node is randomly in their jurisdiction.

If a node Europe solves my transaction block I it's not an US transaction, isn't it?

Re: SEC Claims All of Ethereum Falls Under US Jurisdiction

#50

Post by [deleted] »

bendews wrote: post #47
mw888 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Courts forcing forks I wouldn’t be so sure about that, unless you are equally convicted in that court’s jurisdiction’s conviction to outright ban the whole chain from use - because as soon as two courts mandate two different forks, one of them will be banning a chain that the rest of the globe has consensus on. It’s a lot like banning a whole region from sending mail because one person in that region got caught mai…

Right - but nothing is stopping them from making that law. Countries aren't simply going to adhere to a digital currencies protocol or allow it to avoid regulation because otherwise it goes against the "community spirit". Here we are talking about the hypothetical situation of the U.S claiming complete jurisdiction of Ethereum. The U.S could make whatever laws it likes around the usage of Ethereum, legislate that all…

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