[everdev]

The SEC uses the Howey Test:

1. Was there an investment of money? (money is actually broadly defined to mean anything of value)

2. Was there an expectation of profits from the investment? (this is easy to prove because it's the opinion of the investor)

3. Was the investment of money in a common enterprise? (this means are the interests of the investor and company aligned, or does the investment go into running a business)

4. Does profit come from the efforts of a promoter or third party? (This means is the investor mostly powerless in having their investment go up our down in value)

In your WoW example:

1. Yes

2. Probably for someone

3. Yes, the money is used to develop the platform

4. Yes, if Blizzard hypes their coin or if you can trade it on an exchange

I think the biggest difference between an ICO and a digital good is that ICOs are traded on exchanges. If you buy a digital good and can only use/redeem/trade on the company's platform then it is not a security.

[regulation_d]

I'm not sure you can hand wave the "expectation of profits" factor as easily as you did. Seems like it would have to be a reasonable expectation of profits and would probably have to be true of the majority of the purchasers.

Imagine that I bought $10k worth of Chuck E. Cheese tokens and I could convince the SEC that I sincerely expected the value of those tokens to go up substantially. I doubt that would be enough to meet the Howey requirements, even if my expectation was sincere.

[everdev]

From my conversation, I understood "an expectation of profits" to mean from a reasonable investor. In fact no one even has to complain if the SEC thinks someone could have expected profits then it satisfies that bullet in the test.

[honestlyreally]

Not being that familiar with WoW, wouldn't it be classed as income more than speculation? These people grinded away at a game and earned "gold", now they want to convert it into a different currency.

Doesn't seem speculative for the people playing the game. Though for a trader it is.

Fail to see the difference between buy/sells on the company platform compared to a third party. Both could be used for speculation.

[everdev]

The difference from what I understand is an exchange vs a platform. A platform has utility, an exchange is investing. On an exchange you can trade one currency for another to ideally make a profit. On a platform you buy/sell as part of using the system.

[politician]

An exchange is a platform...