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by JumpCrisscross 1099 days ago
> If it's not even clear what a security is, why would you register as a securities broker/exchange

False condition. The SEC has made it clear that various crypto, e.g. Solana, are securities. If you want to trade those, you must register. Again, if you just want to cash trade Bitcoin and Ether, the SEC has shown zero inclination of messing with you.

1 comments

I can only find a source from 2 days ago that says the SEC claims Solana is a security.

Before that afaik the only cryptocurrency the sec had explicitly said was a security was XRP which coinbase delisted

In 2017, the SEC issued the DAO Report [1]. It—together with guidance around ICOs—made the status quo per the SEC super clear. Investigations and enforcement take time, but the rules of the game were known; the industry had been working to change the status quo.

If you want to know whether something is legal or not, you talk to a lawyer or (less reliably) law enforcement. When Coinbase asked the SEC if it needed to register, without—to my knowledge—exception, it said yes.

[1] https://www.sec.gov/litigation/investreport/34-81207.pdf