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by DennisP 1078 days ago
The judge referenced the Howey case, saying that just because you have an investment contract involving an orange grove, that doesn't mean the orange grove itself is a security. A security is a contract, not just anything that people trade around in a speculative way.

William Hinman of the SEC said much the same thing in 2018: https://www.sec.gov/news/speech/speech-hinman-061418

2 comments

This is pretty obviously the reasonable take.

> A security is a contract, not just anything that people trade around in a speculative way.

The scary thing IMO is that I think if you had enough big money trading bottlecaps or baseball cards, you'd quickly find them being considered a security.

But words have to mean something. Things can't just be a "security" because they make the government feel insecure.

Enormous money trades soybeans but they still aren't securities.
I wonder if this will have an impact on non-native tokens (which are implemented with smart contracts)