[seibelj]

Correct - they explicitly said BTC and ETH are not securities. However ETH's launch was conducted via ICO, where people sent BTC in return for ETH, and the exact same launch style was later declared de-facto illegal security sales with companies being penalized.

The SEC essentially caved to the crypto industry and said (paraphrasing) "Yes, ETH was launched as a security, but it became 'decentralized enough' where it is now a commodity". But gave no guidance on how any other coin could become "decentralized enough" to accomplish the same feat, to the detriment of the US crypto industry which has fallen way behind offshore entities.

[ineedasername]

I read that more as the SEC saying "We didn't reall know what we were dealing with at the time." And their thinking and policy decisions have evolved.to fit both their understanding and evolving crypto scene.

[noxer]

Same should apply to XRP then because it exist way longer than ETH. But unlike ETH, XRP was never sold in return for and arbitrary amount of BTC/USD it was first given away for free and later sold at market value.

[ineedasername]

Date of origin may not matter as much as when it came to the SEC's attention. The SEC allowed BTC & ETH under a set of policies & understanding of crypto. That understanding evolved, changing policy, and then XRP got on their radar under the new policy regime. It probably helps that ETH was at least nominally tied to the USD.

Keep in mind I'm not defending the SEC's decision, just speculating on how the policy decisions might have been made & justified.

[arcticbull]

I think they should shut them both down :)

[noxer]

Why? Does it hurt you? Its all just a huge tech experiment just like the internet was. We have no clue where it leads to but I want to see it in 10 or 20 years.

[arcticbull]

What I mean to say is they should both be regulated as securities which is what they both are. And yeah it's fly by night unregulated attitude hurts plenty of people. Doesn't have to hurt me to be bad.

[noxer]

A security of what? Just because it does hurt people doesn't make it inherently bad. If you could avoid being hurt maybe other can too and thous who did get hurt anyway took the risk on purpose. Noting wrong with that. The SEC should prevent people from misleading or fraudulent offerings not from anything that has a known high risk. Selling a random token is like printing my own money. The SEC would not prevent me form selling worthless piece of paper if I dont mislead buyers into thinking its some kind of ownership for something. There is a difference between preventing fraud and preventing stupidity.