[newsum]

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/security.asp

"It represents an ownership position in a publicly-traded corporation (via stock), a creditor relationship with a governmental body or a corporation (represented by owning that entity's bond), or rights to ownership as represented by an option."

Stop it!

[decentralizedL]

Can't stop won't stop :)

https://www.sec.gov/about/laws/sa33.pdf

"The term ‘‘security’’ means any note, stock, treasury stock, security future, security-based swap, bond, debenture, evidence of indebtedness, certificate of interest or participation in any profit-sharing agreement, collateral-trust certificate, preorganization certificate or subscription, transferable share, investment contract, voting-trust certificate, certificate of deposit for a security, fractional undivided interest in oil, gas, or other mineral rights, any put, call, straddle, option, or privilege on any security, certificate of deposit, or group or index of securities (including any interest therein or based on the value thereof), or any put, call, straddle, option, or privilege entered into on a national securities exchange relating to foreign currency, or, in general, any interest or instrument commonly known as a ‘‘security’’, or any certificate of interest or participation in, temporary or interim certificate for, receipt for, guarantee of, or warrant or right to subscribe to or purchase, any of the foregoing."

[newsum]

quick thought experiment:

If I presell tickets to my music festival to a reseller who in turn profits in selling it to festival goers, you're basically saying my tickets were securities and need to be registered with the SEC. you see how crazy that sounds. :)

DAO tokens were obvious everything else is just a funny money commodity. Yes, some kid made a way to print your own money in under 30 secs. enjoy it!

[yebyen]

I'm so torn. On one hand, I want you to be right, but on the other hand I would love to see the likes of Ticketmaster and StubHub going down in flames at the hands of the SEC.

[newsum]

right. which only pertains to a DAO token – not the vast majority of Ethereum tokens out there.

[decentralizedL]

Nah disagree. Most folks building on top of Ethereum are using token sales as a fundraising mechanism to bootstrap their projects, and these projects are raising $100ms of dollars.

The whole "but, but, these tokens have utility" will get old pretty quickly imo and you can see the signaling with sophisticated projects like Protocol Labs' filecoin offering going the Reg D route.

[jaggederest]

> Is it an investment of money?

> Is it in a common enterprise?

> Are its profits to come solely from the efforts of others?

I'd say by that standard many tokens do indeed count. Also from Investopedia, by the way. Among the things which count as securities are commodity future options, which I would say is about equivalent to most tokens currently on the market.

[newsum]

again, just because there's speculators on a secondary market buying and selling doesn't mean it's a security. a commodity future option is by default NOT the commodity. In the case of a token – you own the commodity and you have the right to use or sell to someone else – like a carton of milk.

The only difference here it took no cost to create the commodity which is why there exists a market to resell at unbelievable margins.