We asked the SEC for reasonable crypto rules. We got legal threats instead

Re:We asked the SEC for reasonable crypto rules. We got lega... by fnordpiglet on Wednesday March 22, 2023 @11:24PM (#35270181)

Forex is not a security because it’s not an investment in an enterprise but an exchange of like for like of legal tender. Otherwise the money changers at airports would be regulated by the SEC and they would have to register their currency exchange, and any international transaction would have to be disclosed and regulated by the sec in literally every single case. Plus the SEC has no authority either of the treasury of the US nor any other governments treasury.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:We asked the SEC for reasonable crypto rules. We got lega... by cdiddy2 on Wednesday March 22, 2023 @11:30PM (#35270220)

so having another country declare a crypto as legal tender makes it no longer a security in the US?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:We asked the SEC for reasonable crypto rules. We got lega... by lxgr on Wednesday March 22, 2023 @11:40PM (#35270272)

A currency being legal tender presumably has little bearing on whether the U.S. would consider it a currency. Some countries don‘t even have the concept of legal tender, while others recognize currencies they don’t issue themselves.

Being issued by a sovereign state would probably be a better test.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:We asked the SEC for reasonable crypto rules. We got lega... by kyboren on Thursday March 23, 2023 @02:35PM (#35279306)

> Being issued by a sovereign state would probably be a better test.

Aha, so they just need another layer of indirection.

Acting on the imprimatur of the country's central bank, programmatically issue a sovereign CBDC upon the deposit of BTC. Keep cryptographic proof of 100% BTC reserves at all times to provide ultimate credibility for your (potentially parallel) currency (so you can keep using dollars or pesos or whatever in your real economy). Allow intra-CBDC transfers for 0.1% fee and programmatic redemptions for BTC for 0.2%. Profit.

`ping -i1 www.bcr.gob.sv`...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:We asked the SEC for reasonable crypto rules. We got lega... by Xorakios on Friday March 24, 2023 @08:09PM (#35297433)

The economic definition of "legal tender" is sometimes obscured in casual conversation.

It isn't "issued by a sovereign state" - that's "fiat" but rather "used for paying taxes." And sometimes, like in the US, debts ("all debts foreign and domestic").

Certainly it has to vary among countries of which I am ignorant, but generally in the Anglosphere it is debts, not payments, that trigger the definition of "legal tender."

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:We asked the SEC for reasonable crypto rules. We got lega... by klodolph on Wednesday March 22, 2023 @11:36PM (#35270243)

Feels like the answer to these questions is just gonna be “maybe such a case in the future will make it to the courts, and the courts will have to come up with an interpretation here.” We can make guesses about what the courts will decide but how confident are we in our guesses?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:We asked the SEC for reasonable crypto rules. We got lega... by cdiddy2 on Wednesday March 22, 2023 @11:39PM (#35270266)

its already the case with el salvador and bitcoin. bitcoin wasn't really under question though for being a security so would need someone to make a smaller token legal tender

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:We asked the SEC for reasonable crypto rules. We got lega... by fsckboy on Wednesday March 22, 2023 @11:42PM (#35270285)

an argument like that couldn't hurt, but if North Korea declared Apple stock to be legal tender, it wouldn't make Apple stock not a security.

[ Parent | on HN ]