Let's find out how the Ripple lawsuit is going to end, there is good chance to win it.
The woke up one day and they "hey this crypto is a threat to our dollar'. Gensler said "we don't need any more digital currencies, we have USD, EUR, YEN". And that for centuries there was no need to transfer value through more than one medium. That can explain their views clearly.
No, this is specifically addressed by securities law. It's not impossible, but you have to do it properly.
Inconceivable!
Reading the comment, you'd think the comparison was on harm or lethality.
Which is damn smart given we let regulated persons manufacture and distribute opiates. In this analogy, Coinbase is upset its heroin sales are illegal when a licensed pharmacist can sell a similar product.
If someone is having a strong emotional reaction, substitute any regulated product—jumbo jets, vodka, legal advice—and move on.
In this analogy Coinbase' story seems to be that they asked how to apply to become a licensed pharmacist, but never got an answer. While the SEC suggests they never tried.
This gets confusing when the crime is phrased as unregistered heroin sales.
They got an answer they didn't like: they'd have to change how they did business. (Also, what they list. The SEC issued The DAO Report in 2017.) We enacted the '34 Exchange Act in part to segregate the broker, exchange and custodial functions of securities trading. Coinbase was asking how to become a licensed pharmacist without having to check prescriptions.
> gets confusing when the crime is phrased as unregistered heroin sales
Try "opiate." Coinbase thought they found something new, and asked if it was okay. They didn't think they got a clear answer and proceeded. Now they're crying foul at the lack of prior guidance, or that someone else does have a license. The author's point is that these arguments don't make sense. There may be other arguments that do, but these aren't among them.
Using a much more extreme example to make the point (that companies don't automatically have a right to a path to compliance) obvious.
A: You say “Z is true of X”, and I respond “Z is false for thing-like-X”, implying “Z is likely false for X”.
B: You say “Z is true”, and I respond “Z is false for Y”, implying not “Y is like X therefore Z is likely false”, but “Z is sometimes false, so we need to actually evaluate whether it’s true of X”.
I think people who use this reasoning would do well to make it more explicit.
(Here, Z is “there must be a path to compliance”, X is Coinbase, and Y – not, I believe, thing-like-X – is heroin.)