<story><title>SEC Issues Report Concluding DAO Tokens, a Digital Asset, Were Securities</title><url>https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2017-131</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mifeng</author><text>If you read the actual report (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sec.gov&amp;#x2F;litigation&amp;#x2F;investreport&amp;#x2F;34-81207.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sec.gov&amp;#x2F;litigation&amp;#x2F;investreport&amp;#x2F;34-81207.pdf&lt;/a&gt;), you may notice that the SEC is careful to apply securities law  DAO specifically.&lt;p&gt;In particular, they apply the security test: &amp;quot;did investors invest money with a reasonable expectation of profits derived from managerial efforts of others?&amp;quot;  Since DAO was a wisdom-of-crowd VC fund, the answer is a clear YES.&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, they are careful to say that other token sales &lt;i&gt;MAY&lt;/i&gt; be securities but will be treated based on their specific facts and circumstances.&lt;p&gt;My takeaway is that this doesn&amp;#x27;t change anything.  The SEC is proceeding cautiously: applying securities law in clear-cut cases, &amp;quot;studying the effects&amp;quot; generally.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s also not a bad thing to comply with securities regulation. FileCoin is doing quite well selling only to accredited investors on CoinList.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jesseclay</author><text>Jesse from CoinList &amp;amp; Protocol Labs here -- completely agree that following securities regulation is an especially great idea. Unfortunately doing that correctly can be really challenging. Despite several misleading doom-and-gloom articles written today (&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;fortune.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;25&amp;#x2F;sec-says-digital-tokens-are-securities-warns-of-fraud&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;fortune.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;25&amp;#x2F;sec-says-digital-tokens-are-se...&lt;/a&gt;) the SEC has not said that all tokens are securities. Rather, application tokens are a promising new technology that enable all kinds of use-cases, each one unique from the next, and each having a unique &amp;#x27;regulation profile&amp;#x27;. It would be very short-sighted to apply broad sweeping legislation and with this ruling, it&amp;#x27;s clear that the SEC also feels the same.&lt;p&gt;Just like mifeng mentioned, it really is a facts and circumstances determination per token. Given we had to build all of the token sale scaffolding (legal, tech, etc.) for Filecoin, it made sense to open this up to other technologists as well. Our hope with CoinList is that creators can focus on building awesome tech and expanding the valuable uses for application tokens while reducing the amount of time and resource they need to spend making sure they stay within the parameters of the law. 
Filecoin may be limited to accredited investors for this particular sale, but that&amp;#x27;s not to say other tokens that use the platform in the future would be required to do the same. Ultimately the decision is up to the creators, but they should be very well educated on the implications of what those choices could mean.</text></comment>
<story><title>SEC Issues Report Concluding DAO Tokens, a Digital Asset, Were Securities</title><url>https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2017-131</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mifeng</author><text>If you read the actual report (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sec.gov&amp;#x2F;litigation&amp;#x2F;investreport&amp;#x2F;34-81207.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sec.gov&amp;#x2F;litigation&amp;#x2F;investreport&amp;#x2F;34-81207.pdf&lt;/a&gt;), you may notice that the SEC is careful to apply securities law  DAO specifically.&lt;p&gt;In particular, they apply the security test: &amp;quot;did investors invest money with a reasonable expectation of profits derived from managerial efforts of others?&amp;quot;  Since DAO was a wisdom-of-crowd VC fund, the answer is a clear YES.&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, they are careful to say that other token sales &lt;i&gt;MAY&lt;/i&gt; be securities but will be treated based on their specific facts and circumstances.&lt;p&gt;My takeaway is that this doesn&amp;#x27;t change anything.  The SEC is proceeding cautiously: applying securities law in clear-cut cases, &amp;quot;studying the effects&amp;quot; generally.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s also not a bad thing to comply with securities regulation. FileCoin is doing quite well selling only to accredited investors on CoinList.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sillysaurus3</author><text>Is it still ok to use ICOs as as glorified Patreon or Kickstarter without worrying you&amp;#x27;ll run afoul of the securities laws? As long as no one is expecting profits from the tokens they buy from you.&lt;p&gt;Where it gets strange is if your tokens are picked up by an exchange. What happens if someone buys your tokens with the expectation that they can sell them to someone else? Then the price of your tokens might rise, and they&amp;#x27;ve made a profit. Does that count as expectation of profit?</text></comment>