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by Dylan16807 1100 days ago
> Would you really want a big government agency to decide on the merit of your business ehen you IPO?

I said the exact opposite of that. Please look at the second sentence again.

I want them to decide if I'm trading securities, especially when "this might be considered a security" is in my S1. Nothing more.
1 comments
JumpCrisscross 1100 days ago
> want them to decide if I'm trading securities, especially when "this might be considered a security" is in my S1. Nothing more

Investment banks would love this. It’s pro bono legal advice.

If this is important, require a legal opinion or no-action letter prior to investing in the IPO. Coinbase didn’t secure those and investors didn’t demand it. Here we are.

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LawTalkingGuy 1099 days ago
> It’s pro bono legal advice.

No, it's asking an agency to clarify its own rules.

If I, as a ham radio enthusiast, find an unclear section of the FCC rules I expect to be able to contact someone and ask what the agency's understanding of it is. They wrote it after all.

For example, if they wrote 5-15Mhz, I might wonder if they mean inclusively. Does that cover 15Mhz, or just 14.9999?

I'm not expecting them to preemptively rule on all legal cases which depend on this, just on their interpretation of their own words.

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Dylan16807 1100 days ago
You could make them pay for it.

Also there is potential fine revenue.

But for big enough companies, some amount of taxpayer-paid analysis makes sense. It ultimately benefits consumers.

Isn't analyzing the S1 "pro bono legal advice" to begin with?

And they did have legal opinions, just not from the SEC that is still almost entirely refusing to evaluate crypto tokens. Would a no action letter have been feasible?

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JumpCrisscross 1100 days ago
> Would a no action letter have been feasible

Probably not, given the integrated broker-exchange-custodian model. But that’s the point. We specifically outlawed that in 1934. Coinbase was counting on rules being changed in the midst of regulatory inertia.

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Dylan16807 1100 days ago
If it's clear enough for certain popular tokens then the SEC should have just declared them as securities years ago.
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