A particular instrument might blur the lines in terms of how it's packaged and promoted, but the underlying activities aren't blurry at all. People who acquire an asset in the hopes that its price will rise so they can resell it on a secondary market are speculating ("investing"), full stop.

Obviously, this isn't the first time we've had offerings ostensibly taking these forms. People used to buy comic books in the hopes of their appreciation. Ty sold Beanie Babies to people who were stockpiling them for eBay.

The reason Ty didn't get in trouble, but Munchee did, was that Ty was never stupid enough to record videos extolling the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity people had to 9x their investment in restaurant review coupons. Again: a very significant component of the SEC's concern is about marketing and promotion.