> The SEC's official position is the DAO guidance and the Howey Test.
Ethereum itself seemingly fails the Howey test, so it will be interesting to see if they are all prosecuted.
Ethereum itself seemingly fails the Howey test, so it will be interesting to see if they are all prosecuted.
"From April 30, 2016 through May 28, 2016, The DAO offered and sold approximately 1.15 billion DAO Tokens in exchange for a total of approximately 12 million Ether (“ETH”), a virtual currency used on the Ethereum Blockchain."
They might change their mind on the matter, and expand their definition of virtual currency to be securities, but they went out of their way to publish a piece which references the word "Ethereum" 39 times, "Ether" 2 times, and "ETH" 15 times. None of those times do they refer to Ethereum as as security.
[1] - https://www.sec.gov/litigation/investreport/34-81207.pdf
That's actually the entire point of the Howey test, which was established as part of a case to determine whether or not property that was classified as real estate could also be classified as a security.