[brianpgordon]

He even flat out says that most of the ICOs he's seen should be considered securities:

> By and large, the structures of initial coin offerings that I have seen promoted involve the offer and sale of securities and directly implicate the securities registration requirements and other investor protection provisions of our federal securities laws. Generally speaking, these laws provide that investors deserve to know what they are investing in and the relevant risks involved. I have asked the SEC’s Division of Enforcement to continue to police this area vigorously and recommend enforcement actions against those that conduct initial coin offerings in violation of the federal securities laws.

I think some of the other commenters are glossing over that statement and being rather over-optimistic about the SEC's stance toward tolerating ICOs.

[dahdum]

They've been pretty clear in the past about the Howey test and ICOs running foul of it, so that part of his letter wasn't all that new. They're already taking action and should be - just today I saw an ad promising 60x returns on an internal market.

I didn't expect to see him acknowledging the positives of cryptocurrency and the ICO funding model overall.