Sorry but how is this colossal or huge? It's not new? The judge was reinterating what is already known? Crypto in USA is and has been tainted under their own ideological securities laws Cryptocurrency founder's effort to dismiss a federal case against him by arguing that cryptocurrencies he created were not securities for the purpose of criminal law was shot down by a judge in Brooklyn, New York Tuesday. This makes the crypto market in USA defunct. Each ICO needs to be tested under the "Howey Test" and 99% fail that test (meaning they pass as being a security), hence why it's near on impossible to offer ICOs in the US or to US residents, as they are all coming under the SEC. With (being a security) comes many many obligations and requirements that ICOs cant meet, similar to requiring a PDS or registered MIS or/and AFSL licence in Australia, along with the myriad of tax/legal implications. This is mainly due to offering a token or coin that in the white paper mentions a return to coin holders or a possible increase in value or the underlying token. Any "thing" that insinuates as an interest in and a return on investment is a security under the USA securities law, more or less. So some ICOs then tried to (rort the SEC system) and say the token was only used to get access to their platform to use their service, bit like ACU for example, (which truth be known doesn't need a token)? Unfortunately that also fails the Howey test as funds or coins raised from the ICO are pooled, and secondly the ICO participants don't have management of the day to day running of the enterprise, and implied returns make it a security. Lastly, a crypto token or coin gives you no right to ownership of the underlying company, it merely is a digital token with no real intrinsic value. Bitcoin is probably the only one that has real value, as it acts as a replacement of cash, that's its true underlying use, which is not the same as most of these ICOs. Even if the underlying company make $500 billion dollars a year, shareholders will probably be happy, coin or token holders really receive no benefit? Huge yeah, in a bad way, not a good one. The naivety in here is a little worrying, understandable being blinded by the lights, but concerning all the same.
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