Re:Web3? I have my DAOts
by Animats on Tuesday December 07, 2021 @02:16PM
(#29476940)
Yes. It's pretty clear that forward looking NFTs are securities under US law, per the Howey test. The NFT community is in total denial about this.
The SEC is basically reactive. They wait until people complain about losing money in a scam. Then they bring the hammer down. This avoids complaints about over-regulation.
(A "forward looking NFT" is something like land in a virtual world that doesn't exist yet.
You're funding an enterprise run by others to build the thing. That's an investment contract, which the SEC regulates.
An NFT that represents "art" that exists at the moment of sale is probably just a collectable.)
By the way, none of this is new. See "Swampland in Florida" on Wikipedia for the 1950s version of the same concept.
The SEC is basically reactive. They wait until people complain about losing money in a scam. Then they bring the hammer down. This avoids complaints about over-regulation.
(A "forward looking NFT" is something like land in a virtual world that doesn't exist yet. You're funding an enterprise run by others to build the thing. That's an investment contract, which the SEC regulates. An NFT that represents "art" that exists at the moment of sale is probably just a collectable.)
By the way, none of this is new. See "Swampland in Florida" on Wikipedia for the 1950s version of the same concept.