Judge overseeing SEC v. Coinbase just dismissed a class action against Uniswap.
Notice the language:
โDue to the Protocolโs decentralized natureโฆ no identifiable defendant.โ
โโฆthe fact that the current state of cryptocurrency regulation leaves them without recourse.โ
if youโre sufficiently ambitious, almost everywhere in America has a ceiling. when you hit it, you have four choices, depending on who you are, what you do, and what you want:
NY
SF
DC
LA
thatโs really it
*hits bong*
so, you're telling me, I wasn't dreaming when a bison-headed star-spangled shaman stood on the Senate dais and summoned an army of trolls to kill the Vice President on orders of the President?
and as punishment, a bearded wizard stole the President's voice?
by law the President cannot fire the SEC Chair.
Why? Because the SEC is supposed to be independent. Insulated from political pressure.
Clear, obvious evidence of political coordination between Chair
@GaryGensler
and
@SenWarren
is wrong.
They must publicly explain themselves.
๐จ ๐จ: What was
@SenWarren
's staff doing coordinating questions & testimony with officials from the Securities and Exchange Commission before their leader testified before Warren's committee in 2021?
@jasoninthehouse
breaks down the emails the Oversight Project just uncovered:
@matthewstoller
โIf you oppose my policies you are materially supporting terrorismโ
Those are the talking points yall are going with? 2002 Rumsfeld greatest hits?
Seriously?
@RichardHanania
They find a way to be on the right side of history every time. Itโs easy when you have clearly stated principles that you enforce consistently. Imagine that.
Proud to be an alum.
Today, we at
@LEJILEX
and the Crypto Freedom Alliance of Texas sued the
@SECGov
to put an end to its aggressive and unorthodox enforcement actions against our industry:
Elizabeth Warren has not passed any meaningful legislation during her time in office.
Instead, sheโs relied on shadowy super bureaucrats to push her policy agenda extralegally, outside of democratic checks and judicial review.
Loper Bright frustrates that. Of course sheโs mad.
Let's call this Supreme Court ruling on Chevron what it is: a power grab by the far-right to benefit the wealthy and well-connected.
Corporate interests want extremist judges to write the rules at the expense of consumers, workers, safety, and the environment.
@ewarren
which crypto firms, specifically?
This is such an outrage that billion dollar crypto firms were bailed out. Please name names. Please tell us what legal authority was used to bail them out.
I worry your constituents will read this as vague. Please be direct and specific.
@SenWarren
@SECGov
This is insulting to everyone who works in this industry, many of whom are your constituents.
You know the SEC had no authority over FTX. You are exploiting an event that hurt consumers to attack unrelated engineers and entrepreneurs. Thatโs wrong.
@SenWarren
@SECGov
was an offshore exchange not regulated by the SEC.
The problem is that the SEC failed to create regulatory clarity here in the US, so many American investors (and 95% of trading activity) went offshore.
Punishing US companies for this makes no sense.
If you had to guess someoneโs personal moral code or philosophy, whatโs the best single question you could ask?
I would go with โhow do you think addiction works?โ
The White House has rarely opined directly on anti-crypto policies, leaving that to agencies and surrogatesโuntil today.
With this Statement of Administration Policy, the White House emphatically endorses an abuse of administrative law and practice as a means of policymaking.
It's unfortunate that the WH issued the below Statement of Administration Policy indicating that the President would veto H.J. Res 109, the resolution to nullify SAB 121.
SAB 121 would require custodians to record customers' digital assets as liabilities on their balances
@SarahTheHaider
Treated us like full autonomous humans our entire lives. Loving, caring, guiding, coaching, parenting, of course. But never subjugated.
Elizabeth Warren built her whole political career on her negotiations with Wall Street during the Great Financial Crisis:
We bail you out, you follow our rules, and we will make you permanent monopolists.
Jamie took the deal.
"I've always been deeply opposed to crypto, bitcoin, etc. [Senator Warren] pointed out the only true use case for it is criminals," says JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. "If I were the government I'd close it down."
Wells Fargo defrauds its customers in 2019 through illegal fees,
@RepMaxineWaters
comes out swinging.
@SBF_FTX
literally steals customer funds to buy real estate, startups, and politicians, and Rep. Waters thanks him for his candor.
What is happening.
It's been difficult to explain the SEC's legal position to founders, because it's not a *legal* one. It's nakedly political.
With their lawsuits against
@coinbase
and
@binance
, the SEC finally revealed the political plan behind "regulation-by-enforcement".
๐งต
Today is the deadline for comments on the SEC's proposed "exchange" rulemaking. Talking to
@Blockworks_
,
@fund_defi
's
@millercwl
had this to say:
"Simply put, the proposed rulemaking makes the SECโs position clear: centralize, shut down, or get out of the United States."
@Andrewmd5
I really donโt understand how anyone who has felt terrified and violated by someone physically breaking into your home, threatening you and your loved ones if you donโt give them what they want, could ever describe that experience as โnon-violent.โ
This reads like โget over it.โ
One of lifeโs enduring mysteries of crypto regulation is why
@SenWarren
is cryptoโs greatest opponent in Congress.
Hereโs a technology that could advance all the causes she cares aboutโtransparency, access, consumer protectionโwhile cutting out the banks!
A theory:
@lhfang
if you see it as part of the broader techlash, it makes sense.
the FDA went after SF-based, VC-funded Juul, not products made by their competitors (tobacco companies with deep relationships in Washington)
@owenbroadcast
โor, more delicately, it teaches (1) the virtue of openness to new experiences, (2) donโt judge a book by its cover, and (3) never say never
there are three different, often rival, political constituencies that we lump together and call "crypto"
the Makers, part of the software industry
the Market, part of the financial industry
the Movement, part of the cypherpunk and anarchist political scenes
@mayavada
if I had the means, Iโd do the same. Increasing housing production is the single most important moral cause in Californian cities.
Every single social justice concern, from the unhoused to unaffordable rent to community displacement, is downstream of the housing supply problem.
I'm hearing that the immediate fallout of the Hinman Emails within the SEC is that staff will be more secretive, more cautious about what they put in comments and internal chats.
If true, that's embarrassing.
Our regulators should be willing to stand behind their words.
@lex_node
I encourage the SECโs Enforcement Division to aggressively pursue this popular influencer who has been promoting these securities as โrisk-freeโ on YouTube
so good, so good, so good
โit defies logic that a drafter of computer code underlying a particular software platform could be liable under Section 29(b) for a third-partyโs misuse of that platformโ
The law, as it pertains to
@GaryGensler
โs authority over crypto, is now clear:
Tokens are not securities, and we no longer have to pretend that they are.
Before we get into the hard legal work that comes next, I want to talk about why this is a legally sound opinion:
๐งต
hot take: blockchain is still a more revolutionary development than GPT
Blockchain enables something that was impossible before: governance without government.
GPT/LLM-style AI empowers us to do what was already possible, but faster easier greater cheaper better.
Congress has passed no law banning or restricting crypto.
Regulators like the SEC and CFTC have adopted no rules enacting crypto policy.
Everything the federal government has done to frustrate the crypto industry in America has been done extralegally and undemocratically.
I am firmly convinced that, if crypto was allowed to grow and develop in the same permissive regulatory environment that the early internet enjoyed (80s-2000s), things would be very very different.
Compliance is undefined, good faith is punished, utility is illegal.
in 2021 crypto insiders believed it was the future of retail crowdfunding, of artist royalties, of worker-owned coops
but for outsiders, it was scams, pump-and-dumps, and gambling
in 2024 the outsiders still believe thatโthe difference is that insiders increasingly do as well
Risley v. Uniswap, Footnote 8
Remember that citation.
It undermines a nasty tactic weโve seen the SEC, CFTC, and class action plaintiffs use against crypto: arguing that designing a protocol to avoid the law is the same as admitting guilt under the law.
โParticularly given the
Class-based affirmative action will strike Americans as more fair than race-based policies.
But the real task should be to expand enrollment at elite colleges, so that admissions aren't such a vicious zero-sum game.
@Noahpinion
I wonder what precautions she would take if she knew there was a disease that, if she got it, would require her to wear a mask indoors and avoid socialization for the rest of her life.
Some personal news: I joined
@alliancedao
as General Counsel โ heading up a legal team with a mandate to turn โdecentralizationโ from a buzzword to a meaningful legal reality.
Excited and humbled by the opportunity to build with this team. LFG!
Tokens represent underlying rights to access or interact with a public blockchain and/or software deployed on that blockchain.
But, these rights are not *legal claims*! This is critically important! The rights are enforced by software, not by courts!
Tokens are not securities!
Never voted GOP in my life. Canโt do it as long as they are against free expression and bodily autonomy.
Never voting Democrat ever again. Canโt do it as long as they are against feee speech and financial privacy.
What do :(
I just canโt get over the revelation that American regulators spent a decade trying to figure out how to regulate crypto, kept trying to buy time so they could understand the tech, couldnโt figure it out, and then finally decided to just flip the table and try to ban it.
@Zapprenfro5
if you have any ambitions in politics, diplomacy, international relations, or policy work generally, there's really nowhere else in the US to go except New York for some think tanks and the UN
@justinamash
At least Congress is feeling the same thing weโre all feeling in our industries. Power and wealth are locked up in a Boomer generation thatโs historically hesitant to pass their learnings, status, and assets to their kids and grandkids.
moving to a new apartment, trying to send money from my checking to my new landlord.
Best my bank can do is (i) mail them a paper check or (ii) charge me $25 to do a wire transfer
How the fuck are we not all using crypto yet
The cost of medical diagnosis is not simply the cost in cost, but also the cost in time and convenience. In many studies, AI outperforms all but the very best doctors โ and does so inexpensively and quickly.
Why isn't it on every phone, then? FDA.
@afrosypaella
I really, really want to argue that all this concern about mispronunciation is grossly ableist โ especially for those who struggle to learn languages with major phonetic differences.
But itโs low hanging fruit, so someone better positioned to do it will come along eventually.
@amylittlefield
Quick note from someone who has written many termination memos for many corporate clients over the years:
No explicit threats are needed. Legal threats don't lead to terminations. Behavior that raises the threat of litigation does (like, say, consistently libeling someone).
you may think all of the above is obvious. Good! It is!
obviously tokens are not securities! just as a house is not a mortgage, a book is not a copyright, a piece of paper is not a contract!
However bad you think the bureaucrats have gotten, theyโre even worse.
I have never been more outraged at the conduct of government attorneys in my professional life.
"Fuck the SEC"
I am sure you are used to this sentiment coming from the crypto folks, but what if I told you that it was not, in fact, the crypto crowd that just said this, but rather a federal judge in Utah. Don't believe me? Read on.
For those who have forgotten, among the
my god. she really did it.
By trying to debank cryptoโa sector in the tech industryโshe forced tech VCs to evaluate the stability of their banks, leading to the discovery of SVBโs balance sheet problems (caused by Fed rate increases), triggering the runโฆ
now, contagion.
JUST IN: Regional bank stocks are plunging with multiple stocks down 20%+ in a matter of minutes.
PacWest Bancorp, $PACW, now down 29%, stock halted.
Western Alliance Bank, $WAL, now down 25%, stock halted.
Metropolitan Bank, $MCB, now down 24%, stock halted.
Buckle up.
Judge finds that title does not pass to the pool (meaning, the smart contract devs and/or DAO token holders) when you deposit your tokens into a smart contract
Weโve read the Illinois Digital Assets Regulation Act.
We cannot support the bill. Though IL lawmakers may have good intentions, as drafted it is fatally flawed and overtly hostile to innovation.
Our analysis in this thread:
Last night in Illinois, a bill advanced that would make unlicensed โdigital asset business activityโ (i.e., most blockchain activities) a felony.
If the House passes the bill, it could become law in a matter of weeks.
Alliance opposes the Digital Assets Regulation Act (DARA).
Holding a token doesn't vest in you any legal rights per se because, as
@CarolineDPham
put it, tokens "are things, not financial instruments."
This is really the beginning and end of the question. Tokens are not securities.
The SEC does not have the expertise, personnel, resources, knowledge base, desire, intention, skillset, andโmost importantlyโlegal authority to regulate software development.
2) The
@secnews
hasnโt had an intellectually honest or serious conversation on crypto/web3 for 4 years. If the SEC isn't going to take this innovation and technology seriously, Congress should not view them as a serious crypto regulator.
The original sin of crypto regulation is that the first major use casesโcryptocurrency and DeFiโare financial, so the people at the table are bankers, securities regulators, VCs, traders, monetary policy wonks.
This is so much bigger than money.
What makes securities unique from other investments is that the value is based primarily on that underlying legal claim.
Stocks are claim on company assets. Notes a claim on cash flow. Howey's investment contracts a claim on orange groves.
Simply *not* true of most tokens.
further, the majority of those costs arise from accounting formalities that make no sense as applied to a purported implied-by-law 'investment contract' that does not represent a claim on a company's assets
Last night, a miracle happened on
@joinClubhouse
:
A sane, informative discussion between political rivals on social media.
@chesaboudin
crashed a discussion hosted by
@micsolana
and
@michelletandler
and I wrote a couple thousand words about it here:
at some point, SEC lawyers need to step up and advise their client, non-lawyer Gary Gensler, that the law doesnโt say what he thinks it does and that what heโd like to do is not exactly legally coherent
*tokens* trade on AMMs--*securities* do not
SOME *transactions* in SOME tokens on AMMs *might be* securities--but that's *not* because an investment contract is *trading on* the AMM
even *if* like me you think US securities laws are super broad, this one is beyond the pale
Atlanta and Nashville are unique cases, Top Tier cities for certain cultures and niches, but ultimately the most ambitious still must do their time in LA or NY
@MattZeitlin
said differently, lots of tech people genuinely believe that everyone should have fair notice as to whether their conduct is proscribed by law before they act, yes
A unanimous Supreme Court in 1997:
"The record demonstrates that the growth of the Internet has been and continues to be phenomenal. As a matter of constitutional tradition, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we presume that governmental regulation of the content of
@micsolana
@bowl_of_worcel
for those confused, weโve known this since at least 2020
โThereโs less of it, but the sugar in Oatly has a higher gram-for-gram impact on your blood sugar than the HFCS in Coca-Cola.โ
Not all investments are "securities"
Obviously true at a high levelโinvestments in your home so it sells for more are not "securities" nor are investments in your education to increase your salary.
Securities are a unique subset with unique risks, which is why we regulate them.
Biden Executive Order on Crypto just dropped.
In short: no changes in law (yet), but much clarity about enforcement priorities *and* where the industry can work together with the administration (a pleasant surprise).
@dickc
@pt
@Jason
@coinbase
dude this is... you know youโre talking about human beings, right?
...and providing video commentary to their violent murder, that you support, because of political disagreements?
You used the word โhappilyโ to describe your feelings about that.
Are you OK?
Praise be. This is not a dismantling of the SECโs enforcement power, this is a dismantling of the SECโs judicial power.
They are free to enforce. They just need to do it in a way that will persuade an impartial judiciary, not their in-house courts.
@CEBKCEBKCEBK
@DrClaytonForre1
@Babygravy9
cute, but wolves are not fiercely hierarchical in nature. they (like humans) only become so when domesticated or in conditions of scarcity and desperation
@RatOrthodox
The mistake in your analysis is that you are discounting the x-risk from totalitarianism. Once you help build that government, thereโs no reason to believe they will care about alignment with anything other than the state.
More technically, "securities" are so called because they "secure" an interest in an underlying asset. A mortgage secures the holder's interest in the house, despite the mortgagor not having any typical ownership or possessory rights.
Not true of most tokens.
@azzecca
Itโs happened before (disco in the 80s, house in the 2000s), itโs happening again, and the scene will emerge again.
Those defining the scene today will be legends in a few years.
Social networks are like cities. Learn to navigate them as such.
Some tips:
โStay out of the dangerous and/or overcrowded parts.
โThe well-lit places are boring.
โExplore different areas until you find one that feels like home.
โMeet your neighbors, patronize local businesses.
With most investments, you pay an upfront cost and then you earn a return either by simply holding (like gold bars) or improving it (like a house).
With securities, you earn a return based on an underlying legal claim to assets often owned/controlled by third parties.
i say again:
The lack of real use cases is a deliberate policy choice.
Regulators effectively ban anything useful or valuable, then point at the uselessness they permit as justification to ban it all.
People keep asking why we don't have more real blockchain use cases and killer apps
Its not because the blockchain is a "solution in search of a problem" - its because its nearly impossible to launch a token that accrues value
With smart market structure regulation, all the
My biggest fear when Trump was in office was that he would weaponize government for political gain.
Anyway, Bidenโs administration has now sued every major American tech giant, every American crypto exchange, and Elon Musk (from like a dozen different agencies).
We need to have real policy discussions about the overwhelming costs of the KYC/AML regime versus its meager benefits. Not only does it fail to stop criminals, it gives them a whole new angle of attack.
Enough. Time to move on to other solutions.
Evolve hack includes full KYC data and, apparently, images of identity credentials.
This puts EVERY entity in the financial system at risk for fraud, not just users/programs of Evolve.
@RachelintheOC
Would rather not announce it on my own feed, but yeah. It happens probably once or twice a quarter, but exclusively in party contexts (ie: lots of strangers, drugs/alcohol, heightened sexual vibes, etc). 1-2/yr in other contexts too
Abolish KYC. Invalidate the BSA as unconstitutional. Enough is enough.
Forced collection of data under threat of criminal liability is not only dangerous policy, itโs ineffective. It does not stop criminals, it does not prevent money laundering.
Kroll Data Leak Urgent
Kroll email (25 Aug) saying that name, address, email address, and the balance in FTX account was leaked
On Kroll's Q&A they state the information leaked is the above +
FTX account no., Unique ID and Phone numbers
Creditors Please be Safe
Some people are just so casually, pathologically cruel โ and, worse, they are somehow both blind to their cruelty and feel entitled to it.
An easy way to add happiness to your life is to quickly and efficiently identify and avoid these people at all costs.
how crypto talks to regulators
how regulators talk to crypto
โItโs weird that crypto would insist upon its rights through legal process and expect their regulators to follow the law and do their jobs.โ
We are asking the court to recognize the limits of the
@SECGov
's authority so law-abiding founders and companies in the crypto space can build the future here in America.
NEW ๐จ Today, LEJILEX and the Crypto Freedom Alliance of Texas filed suit against the
@SECGov
. Weโre holding the federal government accountable and fighting for clear, consistent regulation of digital assets in Texas:
@pee_zombie
@tszzl
if you fully understand this tweet, for a lot of us itโs irrefutable evidence that we need to go outside more.
this realization has many people upset and theyโre trying to tweet away the feels