[lallysingh]

I don't think the SEC can do much here, honestly. It's like asking a cop "is this illegal?" For stuff like murder they can say yes. For complicated issues like picking up your kid on Feb 29 when your ex complains about custody agreements only defined for non-leap-years, "we'll arrest and charge you for it, but there's a 50% shot it gets thrown out of court."

There's enough wiggle room between what each crypto product does and the original intent of the law, that this is really asking for a court case to resolve the matter. Hopefully with something clearer than "Apply Howey to this."

The court may end up saying "purely mined currencies aren't securities as long as they don't have X capabilities, ICOs are securities, etc."[0] Which would be very helpful.

[0] I have no idea what they'd actually say, or if the example is reasonable.