Bitcoin Forum

I'm tired to read all the comments in the vein of "the SEC is threatening the crypto world" or "the SEC wants Bitcoin to stay small".  ::)

The SEC's action against Coinbase and Binance has quite clear accusations: these exchanges allowed trading of securities without being authorized to do so. And they offered services like "staking" which are quite similar to bank products and thus also need authorization.

Is any of these accusations related to Bitcoin? No. The SEC has already clarified that Bitcoin is not a security. So the accusations have nothing to do with Bitcoin.

Instead, the accusations are deeply related to the mess the altcoin world has become in the last years, mostly since the "ICO craze" of 2017/18. More than 95% of all altcoins, I would estimate 98-99%, are managed in a completely centralized way, with a team in charge of everything collecting large profits. The most notorious example are the premines. These businesses create coins out of thin air - just a "bug" of the fiat world many Bitcoiners want to "fix" - to pay for marketing, bounties and shills with tokens. These tokens and coins are ... securities.

You don't have to be even a Bitcoin maximalist - I tolerate altcoins with decentralized components (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5456378.msg62407618#msg62407618) and ICOs which are clearly focused on a non-crypto product - to see that these developments have nothing to do with Satoshi's ideal of a decentralized peer to peer cash.

So let's calm down. This is not against Bitcoin. It's against shady business models where companies pretend they are decentralized but aren't, and want a cheaper and less consumer-protecting way to finance their businesses (or directly run away with your money). And it's also about crypto exchanges pretending they aren't banks - but they are, as long as they offer products like so-called "staking" (which nothing has to do with real proof-of-stake).

It brings me hope that Bitcoin seems to be the least affected by the last price drop after the SEC accusations. People seem to begin to understand :)

Sec war is not against bitcoin,  but the war is against the so many manipulation that goes on in exchanges that claims to be centralized and licensed who aid and abated the development of so many shitcoin and hypes that have become a bad actors in the cryptocurrency industry today.

Some time I wonder how those exchange operates or think,  because being centralized means 100% regulatory compliance, why to operate a subsidiary of those exchange without properly getting the license from the authorities of the region you operate,

The highest effect this crisis between the exchange vs SEC will have on decentralized coin (Bitcoin ) is the short-term impact it will have on the price of Bitcoin but in the long run,  Bitcoin is going to recover in price and move ahead.

And nobody cares what the sec thinks or does because at the end this is a battle they can not 100% win. You shut one down another will just come up, best thing about decentralization.
Yeah, they may say whatever is convenient to make it look btc is not the target, but suing two of the top most exchange with huge btc volume can certainly shake the very core of the market. Most likely be the end of many investors going out of the crypto space.

Nobody ever said Bitcoin is targeted directly by SEC but the problem is started with the actions of SEC. They are indirectly disturbing the Bitcoin economic workflow and in reality it's getting worst as the related products are failing to survive in the market. For example, exchanges, p2p platforms, financial institutes directly involved with BTC trades and much more are getting targeted and thus they are failing to run the business properly. The aftermath? Bitcoin that is in possession of those institutes is getting ceased and that actually belongs to the users of those platforms. Now, its big world and there are many people so we can't ask everyone to bend their minds to use decentralized platforms and that's different story so they are going to use these handy tools which ultimately fails bitcoin. Also, with the time SEC gonna put hard burden in Bitcoin's operation so it's still not entirely true what you mentioned about them. SEC does have Devils eyes.

That's true. However: These businesses are not monopolies. I for example do not use neither Binance nor Coinbase and it's absolutely no issue (I'm however not in the US). Consumers themselves have to be a bit wary about the services they use, and which services they offer.

The problem is that some services, like the centralized "staking" I mentioned, have become so common, and even "diehard" Bitcoiners have partly fell in love with them, because they can give them some easy profits. But even a superficial glimpse on them shows that centralized staking is 100% a product which would need an authorization as a bank in most countries (not only the US).

And until now nothing is lost - those wanting to exit these exchanges can still do it. Yes, that can lead to a problematic "bank run" with frozen withdrawals and bankrupt exchanges. But MtGox has shown us in 2014 that it's never a good idea to leave lots of funds on exchanges (Yep, and I know of the problem that professional traders need funds on exchanges. That's their inherent business risk, that's why they can make profit). The best thing would actually be people withdrawing slowly to other platforms, diversificating the market.

I don't think all centralized exchanges will come under attack from SEC. There are still some that do not offer products like staking, and they can limit altcoin tradings to non-security coins. Or close the door definitively for US customers. We sometimes forget that the US has only 3 or 4% of the world's inhabitants :)

This is pure speculation from your side. I don't say it's impossible, but current action is not going in that direction.

Maybe it's a good thing or a bad thing for Bitcoin. Still yet to see it through. With this price drop, in which Bitcoin is less affected, I guess now people will realize the potential about Bitcoin. Those centralized shits are just here for their own benefits. Offering what they can't provide, and they have nothing similar or even close to Bitcoin.
I am also against staking that offers you this and that. But in reality, it's just another way to use its users and take advantage of them.

Then again, the market runs on sentiments. The effect is low, but it does hurt the Bitcoin a little NGL. So if people can understand the facts and move towards Bitcoin, then it's a good thing. SEC could also target Bitcoin in secret and in that process, if they become successful, then it's gonna hurt bad. As of now, it is still unclear to decide what is going on and what will come next

This is why we can’t blame SEC that much since its their job to protect the interest of the public from those businesses who are taking advantage the ignorance of the public. Yes, they are not targeting Bitcoin but since those centralized exchanges are big enough to influence the whole market, the price of BTC are also reacting to this while the many is panicking. Let’s see how Binance will work on this, and i think they’ll face more problems with other country as well, hope they can settle this.

Do crypto exchanges must get authorization from US government before they offer any service, program, or features? Do you think US government or SEC has the role as the regulator in crypto space? As far as I know, crypto is ideally a decentralized system, it is not regulated by any institution. If US government or SEC can regulate crypto exchanges, it means they also regulate crypto as a whole. Whatever the regulation to apply on the exchanges, it will bring a big impact on crypto space.

Anyway, I have no problem if SEC regulates Binance US. But I disagree if they are trying to intervene Binance global. Binance global is not subject to US jurisdiction, it is not located in US territory. Another thing is that what SEC accuses to Binance isn't proven yet. We can't judge SEC is on the right side while Binance is on the wrong side. Everything isn't clear enough, so I don't think we take a conclusion for now.

Suppose we say you're right and SEC is really just pushing for the reform in the Altcoin world (I don't even think it's reform to me this is literally just purge all altcoins), what's going to happen to the rest of the "not shitcoins" spectrum of the altcoin industry? Are they going to be regulated? Are they going to be outright banned/sanctioned? Isn't that a little tyrannical? I need my questions answered since to me, this "targeted" attack isn't so laser-precision as they try to make it out to be, it seems to me that if they were to carry on with this move they'll endanger the future of the industry by outright limiting the altcoins that could operate. Be that as it may shitcoins still drive profit in the industry, so I say we gotta take the good with the bad you know.

Plus even if they did only intend to attack shitcoins and not bitcoins, their attempts had left bitcoin in a pretty precarious state price-wise. It's been sitting pretty nicely in the 27k mark for a while now and then they decided they'd go after binance and coinbase, cause they are selling and allowing unregulated securities to operate, which then lead to bitcoin losing value in a jiffy cause these platforms hold massive influence in the industry.

The SEC is not after bitcoin and they're endeavoring to keep citizens safe from losing their money, yet some of their actions is affecting bitcoin. Does it mean the SEC is letting bitcoin be? out of the blues, SEC that wanted bitcoin regulated is indirectly saying; bitcoin is above our capabilities. Nobody solely stands for bitcoin, who will they go for if they're after bitcoin. Unlike the CEX operating like banks in mediums that seem to help bitcoin rise, but are turns in bitcoin's flesh, the SEC can easily get the CEO of any CEX and fine them over illicit actions and activities happening on the exchange. If the SEC eliminates those shitcoins bitcoin will have a breathing space and investors can invest without fear of losing money. Many investors fall for shitcoins because they want to become early adoptors of the coin, they invest so much money, hoping to hit huge profits when the price of the shitcoin turns 1 or 3 dollars. If the money thrown into shitcoins is channeled to bitcoin, they would have been a better and price of bitcoin today. Out of greed investors get ripped of their money and end up with nothing.

Centralized coins can easily be controlled by the SEC which is much like the plan of BlackRock to control the Bitcoin market. The SEC doesn't even have to distinguish them as security but why are they threatened so much as about those coins? Because despite the fact it's centralized, they still couldn't control it. They may be shitcoins but SEC still have no gloves to wear to get hold of them.


SEC is up for a fight so they'd gonna have a fight that they might not win in the end because no matter what those shitcoins can just go on and move to another country. Its borderless so they'll just leave SEC for whatever they can do.

I really wanted to see how SEC will go after these altcoins after they are done with exchanges.  I hope they are able to shutdown these centralized altcoins that eat up the parts that were supposedly invested in Bitcoin.  If the majority of the altcoins are shut down and people behind them are apprehended by SEC, then I can see the Bitcoin market to an uptrend to a great extent.  Also I also wanted to see an end to these developers which only prioritized the collection of money from unsuspecting investors.

With the beginning of the legal review on crypto services platforms of all kinds, I was one of the few who blessed it because I was convinced that it would help limit the intrusion of these companies and that none of them are decentralized services. The matter has nothing to do with Bitcoin in particular or any of the successful networks in the crypto market, and it can be summarized in two goals:
- Central trading platforms whose activities no one verifies or is able to condemn. This was evident with the FTX incident and the unexpected effects of its collapse on the digital economy in general, which was mainly caused by misconduct in the management of the platform, which was not subject to any oversight from official government institutions.
- Shitcoin projects that are controlled by a central authority that collects profits from people's stupidity and ignorance. This was evident with the collapse of the Luna network and the size of the losses it caused.

No. The SEC has the role as the regulator of the "securities" space, more precisely: it regulates exchanges which offer trading of securities.

If a company is launching a security but calling it a "cryptocurrency", and it is traded in the US (on centralized platforms) then the SEC has the right to intervene.

ICOs in almost all cases are securities, they work very similar to an European financial instrument called "participation certificates" which could be described as a share which does not give you any kind of rights - when their issuers go bankrupt you typically lose everything if you can't sell them fast enough.

The first sentence is correct. But the second is not. As I wrote above, Bitcoin (and a very limited set of altcoins) have no character of securities, because they lack a centralized "issuer". So the SEC has no authority over them, nor over the way they're traded.

Here I'm partly agreeing with you. The legal process is still open. But I think the probability is high that Binance US will be fined or even closed.

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The SEC cannot "regulate altcoins" if they weren't issued in the US and aren't targeted to US customers. They can only regulate companies offering services with them and create their revenue/income from these services, e.g. offering trading, "staking" etc.. That's a big difference.

They can also not regulate altcoins which are not securities. But ~98% of them have the character of a security because they've a centralized issuer. One of the few coins which aren't a security is Monero, there are also smaller coins like Groestlcoin and Namecoin which are decentralized enough. Litecoin is already an edge case (due to its instamine accusation) but I think probability is high that the SEC wouldn't consider it a security, in Europe I'd be confident it would not be regulated by the upcoming MiCa crypto regulation.

That's because many traders panicked and sold, and whales made money shorting the coins because traders are dumbly dumping their precious BTC :)

If hodlers would understand what this SEC thingy is really about, then they wouldn't have reacted this way, and the price perhaps would be still at 27K (by the way, we're over 26K again).

(BTW: for better understanding of the OP I added a sentence which hopefully helps to clarify what I meant, in bold.)

I agree. A lot of altcoins are trying to be like banks offering a percentage of returns on the initial investments made by its investors, and a lot of fraudulent personalities became rich and duped people off of their money because there aren't anything that holds them accountable for their actions. The SEC is just trying to make some service to the public, although it looks like they are targeting bitcoin because it is mainly targeting exchanges which offers a platform for cryptos that work like securities. It isn't something that is bad, but not completely good either. However, it will basically prune out a lot of bad apples in the crypto tree as they no longer have any platform to work with.

I agree, although Bitcoin will certainly be affected, its price in particular. Probably its image, too. But I fully support crypto regulations nevertheless. I even want regulations to be strict, so strict that people can't just easily create shitcoins out of thin air and use them to steal money from innocent individuals. I want regulations to be strong enough to prevent scam exchanges to simply come and go along with their users' money.

I have not seen many opinions of this, but I agree with you that these statements are incorrect due to:


Ultimately, the SEC labeling altcoins (that aren't decentralized in terms of network or distribution) as securities is a harsh, but acceptable move. Harsh because these altcoins might be trying to innovate in their own way and crypto has enabled them to do so. Acceptable because the sad reality is that losses and scams prevail more than good innovations in the world of altcoins.


Right on. I couldn't have said it better myself. The ICO craze has stained any possible innovation that could have alternatively used a bitcoin-like beginning, being a decentralized form of distribution and a decentralized, consensus-based network with a core team of developers. Instead, projects tried to jump-start their idea with the innovation of smart-contracts, and whether they had good or bad intentions had resulted in a permanent stain on the ability to cultivate innovation via a token/altcoin.

In short - Everything going on with the SEC is good for Bitcoin. Less centralized exchange activity and their listing of new & highly speculative coins, more highlight on decentralized exchanges, and increased validation that Bitcoin is not a security.

Investors get emotional because they think that Coinbase and Binance attack is an attack against their investments due to observing the falling prices of altcoins while it is wrong to sell bitcoin to buy altcoins unless you have a compelling reason and eventually try to buy more in the short term and not diversify your investments.

In addition, the proof-of-share coins have been used for financial instruments as many only buy them because they give higher APY without even thinking about these currencies. I do not think that the real target is the "ICO", but DeFi funding.

SEC is an independent agency so it can do anything but they have to prior to the general investors interest. If such a decision had been taken before the fall of FTX, many investors might not have been beggars. But the important thing is that there should be no allegations of harassment. The lawsuit against Binance has led to a major fall in the cryptocurrency market. If Binance manages their business properly we can expect them to get rid of this lawsuit soon.

With the SEC attack it is now making sense and obvious to many on how most of these exchanges in a cloak work hand in hand with these so-called shit coins developers to scam people of their funds. It's due to out of emotional fear by investors thinking that the attack on Coinbase and binance may have effect on bitcoin so a good number had to panick sell which is why the bitcoin price is receding downwards but as the actual story gradual keeps on unfolding bitcoin would rise in price far beyond what it is currently as more investors returns.

Don't be too quick to conclude because Bitcoin been less affected doesn't means people are begining to understand. Do you think if this lawsuit happened in 2022 when it was the main bear market that it won't have affected Bitcoin more than it did. I think why the dump isn't showing much on Bitcoin is because the market has let go of many of the weak hands and sellers and now mostly long term holders and diamond hands are in the Bitcoin market.

Altcoins still has many weak hands and that's one of the reasons they got the biggest dump and also from history, altcoins dump more whenever Bitcoin dump also the lawsuit is targeted at altcoins so they're also dumping because of that. SEC are targeting centralized exchange not bitcoin.

who said that the actions taken by the SEC were targeting Bitcoin? of the many posts I've read, none of them mention that the SEC is targeting Bitcoin, but what they do to exchanges like Binance and Coinbase can have a significant impact on the crypto market globally and it really affects the valuation of Bitcoin. So indirectly, their actions also have an effect on Bitcoin and other coins.

also, this means that Bitcoin and other coins have the potential to be banned in America if they so choose. they just need to mention that bitcoin threatens the existence of the dollar and ban it, I believe that the global crypto market will drop significantly. so the actions taken by the SEC also don't need to be justified because they really have bad intentions towards cryptocurrencies.

Actually no. Or more accurately, it might not be just about that. The rabbit hole might be deeper.

Tin-foil hats on. 8)

Besides doing rate hikes, breaking crypto exchanges in the United States is part of a bigger plan to stop/limit the export of U.S. Dollars overseas. Why? Because the U.S. Government is aware that China might sell their U.S. Treasuries, then by making U.S. Dollars more in demand, it would prevent China from selling them unless it's at discounted prices. Plus an increase in Dollar demand would give the U.S. more allowance to print and buy more dumped Treasuries. It's a debt game and crypto exchanges might merely be casualties of the game.

My curious question is, do the majority of crypto users care about centralized coins or not if most of their time in this space is only utilizing exchange services or in other words the exchange for them is everything, not the coin?
I think this question will be the reason why binance still has the "power" to exert influence apart from being considered the most trusted.

This war will not end until the Russian occupiers try to seize the territory of Ukraine and until the last Russian occupier leaves Ukraine or lies down in its land. Now there are over 300,000 Russian soldiers on the territory of Ukraine who are shooting at Ukrainians with all types of weapons. Ukrainians are forced to defend their country, because they are killed only for their pro-Ukrainian position. That is, Russia wants to destroy Ukraine as a state and the Ukrainians themselves as a nation. Therefore, it is very strange to hear that, while defending their country, Ukrainians are fighting for the United States, and not for their freedom and independence.

During the summer months, the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the south will reach the Sea of Azov and cut Russia's land corridor to the Crimea. The Crimean bridge that Russia built to connect mainland Russia with the Crimean peninsula will also be destroyed. After that, the entire southern front of the Russians in Ukraine will crumble and the victory of Ukraine in this war will become obvious.

I agree with the op about the Bitcoin part, I've also mentioned it recently in another thread. SEC's position on Bitcoin is decent, fair. They want nothing to do with it because Bitcoin is not like the stuff they regulate. That being said, the SEC going after huge crypto companies has a negative impact overall, and on Bitcoin as well, because these are trusted companies that people use for cryptos, including Bitcoin. So I hope the lawsuits will be settled peacefully, without the companies needing to abandon the US market.

What I've read several times is that the SEC is targeting the whole crypto world or crypto sector, and that they want the sector to stay small (at least in the US). See this post for example (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5456534.0). Or the last sentence of your own post :):

I have seen some of the communications of the SEC and it seemed to me more that they're worried about just these practices I describe in the OP: "pseudo-staking" and ICOs. They seemed more worried about consumer protection.

Your conclusion is also a bit strange:

I am not a legal expert but I believe the SEC cannot ban Bitcoin, not even in the US, because it's not a security. To ban it, a law would be needed, and it's difficult to imagine one in a democracy banning Bitcoin but not interfering in freedom of contract. I think the anti-bitcoin sector in the US (those around Elizabeth Warren) are trying another strategy: make Bitcoin/cryptocurrency services so unattractive with enormous KYC requirements that many wouldn't like to bother with that and simply quit investing. This is however another story for me, and isn't related to the current SEC action.


@Wind_FURY : I don't really understand your theory :) What do you mean with "making the dollar more in demand"? Increasing demand of dollars by making them more scarce? But how can a crackdown on (local!) crypto exchanges help with that?

I agree with half of what you said above; I don't think the ICO mania had anything to do with the SEC's current scrutiny of crypto.  I think disasters like FTX and all the other collapses that caused a lot of people to lose a lot of money caught the attention of regulators (though the SEC does seem to have its eyes on staking coins and the like). 

But you're absolutely correct about many of the newer coins having teams behind them and being so much less decentralized than bitcoin.  That's ultimately what turned me off of PoS coins, as I could see that if there's a team in charge anything could happen.  I saw NEO's staking system completely change for the worse, and TRX recently changed things up with holders basically having no say in the matter.  All of that goes against what bitcoin and crypto in general stand for.

These actions against exchanges on the part of the SEC are ridiculous, though.  They're not giving any guidelines on what's what, and they're just bringing charges against businesses trying to do the right thing (but not knowing exactly what the right thing is).  Leave it to an alphabet agency to fuck things up big time.

The exact lawsuit is alleging fraud by Binance in addition to operating as an unregistered securities exchange. So they're dragging Changpeng Zhao through the mud even if it's only about altcoins. This isn't even counting the Coinbase lawsuit either, filed at the same time.

Knowing how these federal agencies operate, if these were really about shitcoins, the U.S. government would've been more adamant about clarifying the regulatory framework on crypto instead of throwing out lawsuits to every exchange in their jurisdiction. Perhaps their intentions truly are to protect the consumers, but a lot of nefarious initiatives starts off with good intent.

I understand that the SEC is against a few selection of Altcoins that were labelled as securities, and not Bitcoin or Cryptocurrencies in general. However, firstly, I don't agree with the declaration of BNB as a security and a few others coins as well, I don't understand why it was declared as such, perhaps because it's a product of Binance, i haven't investigated any further. Secondly, the whole lawsuit may not be against Bitcoin, but it's hurting it in the process as well.

Anyway, I just read that the SEC has reached an agreement in order to keep the exchange open. Thus, I'm suspecting a speedy recovery for the market quite soon.

Source: https://www.binance.com/en/feed/post/660451?ref=500919000&utm_campaign=app_share_link

The SEC is not our enemy nor it was against crypto adoption but they are against useless projects that scammers tried to get some space on known exchanges and use this as a medium to scam innocent people. Unfortunately, most of us misunderstood what they want to happen in the crypto space and that is to wipe out all shitcoins that flooded the market due to rising complaints against them.
They are helping the crypto space free from such fraudulent acts and scam projects - and I see their vital role in improving and building trust.

From what you said, it seems that the SEC is not just trying to make the crypto industry cleaner by creating a regulatory framework to regulate the industry and prevent fraudulent projects from being created freely. On the other hand, SEC is also trying to help investors like us get rid of scam projects, and we will have a healthier investment environment. If that's really what they're doing, then they're really too good, and I'll support them with both hands.

But are they really that good?

I understand that SEC is not after bitcoin as the OP had opined and therefore we shouldn't worry because they are after shaddy shitcoins and maybe ICOs and CEXes who are highly unregulated. Remembering the incident of FTX, it could actually be the reason SEC suddenly remembered the crypto industry.

But then I have my fears. Whether or not SEC is targeting bitcoin, I am concerned that if SEC wins this battle, their next step is to increase domination. It is not bitcoin today doesn't guarantee that it cannot be bitcoin tomorrow. The whole drama is becoming worrisome and its effect is heavily felt on the general market and not only on the altcoins. We have suffered the bear market for a long time, SEC should allow the market rest.

The loss of one shitcoin like XRP is actually the loss of most cryptocurrencies that's been around for more than 10 years. Gensler is not your friend and certainly not a friend of BTC maximalists either. We'd all be surprised by what we don't know behind his facade.

It's about centralized shitcoins that Genler once shill like Algorand and then there's Prometheum that nobody knows about yet had registered to SEC?
Prometheum has a centralized chain also.  Genslar had been the leech in this industry for a long time even in the start of FTX.

Obviously yes it you see the general sentiment of the crypto community, mostly all of them are in favour whatever SEC has done. Even though this might ene up with these big currencies being correct yet this will be good for overall moderation of the crypto community. This will ensure all the shitcoins are now aware of that fact that SEC can come anytime to hammer your activities. And obviously as you said the best part is that bitcoin is not that severally impacted with all this.

Yes, it's not about bitcoin and I'm happy with that. However, the point I criticize is that it is not a coincidence that all these cases came to light while the halving was so close. Their intentions may be good, but the timing is wrong. The fact that this timing is wrong also causes us to question goodwill. Otherwise, with the price shown by Bitcoin, it became clear that the issue is not about bitcoin. Many people are now conscious of such issues and do not sell their bitcoins. What I am glad is that these conscious people are not selling their bitcoins because of these lawsuits.

Control is of course necessary. I'm not against audits, maybe they will make the crypto market better, but what I'm stuck with is the timing of these lawsuits.

Yes, of course the causality is a bit more complicated. But the ICO mania led to the problems with centralization and security-like business models in the altcoin sector. I don't know which was the first exchange offering "staking" - if I remember right it was first a service for holders of PoS coins, but it got quickly out of control, being offered even for Bitcoin.

And there, for me, is the indirect causality between the ICO mania and the current SEC action. Imo you're right that FTX was the main trigger, but FTX had offered all the "bad things" which had become commonplace after the ICO mania: an own token, staking and "pseudo-DeFi".


I agree partly with you that transparency and rationality is a bit lacking in the SEC action. I prefer, in reality, the way the European Union handled the topic, with a transparent regulation (Markets in Crypto-Assets or MiCa) targeting exchange transparency/solvency and security-like business models in the altcoin sector -- which are not prohibited but they have to follow transparency guidelines (a standarized whitepaper) to offer their coins in the EU, from 2024 on. But I think in general the SEC action regarding "staking" services (like in the Coinbase lawsuit) and "securities" is understandable.

At least Binance seems to have reached a first agreement with the SEC, so the biggest danger (Binance blowing up as a consequence of the SEC action) seems to be more distant now.

Nearly all crypto projects are about running away with investors money, they do it because it's perfectly legal to do. There is no contract between an investor and the developer, like in real life projects. People buy Bitcoin or Ethereum, which is not illegal, then they use them to buy a shitcoin, which is also not illegal, the devs don't work on their project, which is also not illegal. Maybe some galaxy brain lawyers could find a way to build a case against the crypto developers, because it's all a scam from the perspective of the spirit of the law.

But I read an article, this is the link where Davidson says that Gengsler is abusing his position as SEC chair, that's why Davidson made a petition asking Gengler to resign as SEC chair because he is said to be abusive and using the position to harass crypto exchanges.

So, this can be a fight between the SEC not because they see something wrong, which in fact is a shortcoming that is not there in the crypto exchanges, instead the problem is in the SEC itself.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/breaking-us-lawmakers-file-sec-stabilization-act-to-fire-gary-gensler

Well, that might be something good for those of us who are long-sighted and see the future, but if we see it from a short-term perspective, it will surely affect Bitcoin as well because disturbing exchanges that allow people to buy and sell Bitcoins will surely have some impact on Bitcoin and the overall market, and we have seen that happening, SEC might have clear intentions of removing coins and tokens they consider securities and Bitcoin isn't one according to them, but their approach will hurt Bitcoin too and they know it.

Also, even if they don't consider Bitcoin a security and aren't fighting directly against it, I'm pretty sure that they don't want Bitcoin to prosper as well because what they basically want is no decentralization at any level, and Bitcoin is decentralized to its core which won't be a good thing for them in the long-run.

          Have you ever thought about the fact that all this concerns speculative operations with coins and tokens? If you use most crypto projects for their intended purpose, then decentralization is preserved.
          Most people in the crypto world have taken a wrong turn. They try to maximize profits, but they forgot about the basic principles. Why was blockchain technology developed with its derivatives? When you go the wrong way, then there will be much more obstacles. This is what we have seen in recent years.

The SEC wants to consolidate people around Bitcoin and its attempts to do so are not unsuccessful. The SEC may be trying to protect investor citizens by sanctioning Binance US but logging into crypto or other exchanges is of the individual's free will. No one forces anyone to buy coins. If Bitcoin's dominance covers half of the market, altcoins cover the other half. We can't put the blame on other coins by calling it shitcoin.

There are necessarily rotten apples everywhere and after they are sorted out, we'll be on our way. It is also necessary to look at the behavior of people who invest in shitcoins in the crypto markets. These are people who want to get rich fast and they want to enjoy their life without effort but fail every time. All these developments show that in the next halving Bitcoin will diverge with all other coins. The regulatory stance of SEC seems to be something beneficial for Bitcoin.

Interesting, you're painting the SEC as the crypto universe's watchful protector, huh? That's a fascinating viewpoint! Who wouldn't welcome a steadfast defender against the onslaught of 'shitcoins'? Here's a thought, though: Could it be that the so-called 'worthless' ventures aren't all that futile? And what of the individuals who struck gold by wagering on them? The border separating a ground-breaking concept and a 'shitcoin' can be pretty thin, right? Yet, if the SEC wishes to take the role of Harry Potter's Sorting Hat, who are we to resist?

Your opinion on Bitcoin's dominance is endearing, indeed. It's as if every altcoin is merely hitching a ride on Bitcoin's success, no? Let's not overlook that many of these 'other' coins are pioneers in their own lanes. As for those seeking instant wealth, you've got a point. They often discover the tough truth: there's no such thing as a free lunch, especially not in crypto. Eagerly waiting for the spectacle at the next Bitcoin halving!

Sorry brother, I don't exists in crypto space only for Bitcoin, if the SEC is trying to crucify projects like Cardano I have every right to hate what they are doing, because I am a investor too.

It makes sense and also believable if we say that SEC isn't going for Bitcoin but at the same time they claimed they are helping the people from losing money, but you will be surprised that this whole move is for their own benefits.

If I am wrong why did they come into agreement with Binance exchange? What benefits for the people that are into crypto after this agreement? Stop deceiving yourself.

It's not every other coins apart from Bitcoin are only centralized shitcoins, or you are ready to call DAI a centralized shitcoin? How about Monero?

I don't understand why bitcoin maximalists would support the SEC in this situation. The fact that the SEC doesn't mention bitcoin directly doesn't mean they don't intend to attack it, what they are doing is planned, and they are slowly looking to control the entire industry and including bitcoin.

I don't hate bitcoin maximalists when they get annoyed with centralized exchanges and altcoins. They have their reasons, but they should take a close look at what the SEC is doing and what they want.

You are right, what the SEC is doing is for their own benefit, they are very hungry to regulate this potential market. If they succeed, we will become their next tax collection.

The SEC is part of the government, it's strange that these people are always opposing and slandering the government on a daily basis, but they are on the side of the SEC in this case. Let's all not forget that the government has never been friendly or in love with bitcoin. Just because the SEC didn't mention bitcoin this time doesn't mean they favor it.

I am like you, I am here for the crypto market, not just bitcoin, bitcoin is just a part, not all. If we are supporting the SEC to destroy binance, and destroy all altcoins, that is no different than we are supporting the destruction of bitcoin.

Then what are you doing on Bitcointalk?


You realize that by saying you're an investor you've just handed the SEC a victory, acknowledging they were right about Cardano?


Stop chewing used tinfoil hats!


The SEC is not in charge of taxing or planing taxing anything, that's the IRS and they are already taxing income from crypto in the US.


Good, then you agree with Satoshi that leaving your coins in charge of a 3rd party is sooooooo stupid?
That you should use cryptos as a p2p method of transferring value and as a method of protecting your wealth?
So, you understand that by taking the side of exchanges and shitcoin centralized money printing here, you're just as bad as a banker arguing against Satoshi?


Bullshit!
The reality is that 90% would support everyone from Hitler to the Rostchilds to the Reptilians to the same government and SEC if that would mean the price of the shitcoin they hold would double overnight even if it means killing Bitcoin!
Why should I care about some shitcoin lovers when all they do all day long is bashing Bitcoin and describe it as old low specs high tech that can't do a thing and is million years behind their stellar shitcoin?

Why should I take the side of Binance when they were charging more for Bitcoin withdrawals while making their shitcoin clone 20 times cheaper, not to mention it putting it on top in search results if you search for Bitcoin?
Why should take the side of CZ when he only has one purpose, to make his BNB replace Bitcoin everywhere?

That is if SEC is even protecting the interest of the public for real, I do not believe this because you can't tell me that FTX customers find just disappeared into thin air, where have the money gone to? Who are the accomplice of this FTX madness? Just that Sam guy and his so called assistant in crime? I do not believe that, if the SEC chairman is into other projects in the space and not Bitcoin then there is more that meet the eye, they are pretending to be working for the public but they are not, it's always about the money.

The SEC works solely in the interests of the big owners. Any stock exchange or project can declare itself bankrupt, and no SEC can stop it. In fact, anyone can go bankrupt, because nobody knows how things will really go tomorrow or later. What is happening now is just a game of big people.

I'm actually wondering what the fuss is all about... because hasn't the SEC (or at least US watchdogs, I can't remember the threads from before) already made it clear they specifically look at how decentralised a project is to determine if it's a security? Bitcoin passed the test easily, Ethereum, I think has made strong cases over the years at improving that, but few other coins come close to Bitcoin's structure (or lack of). Hence why almost everything else is a shitcoin.

While i'll sort of agree the rest of stuff you said, i don''t see the part i bolded quite accurate. Those were securities after SEC said so. So they were only trading securities after they were declared as securities. It's safe to assume that most CEXes acted in good faith that those would be utility coins/tokens.

That being said, there was lot of shady stuff happening which i never understood to be legal, like "staking" for example. It wasn't staking as in securing the chain, it was just paying interest for keeping tokens "locked". Most likely those were even lended elsewhere.

One thing that still weirded me out is that CEXes like binance were giving lambos and other prices for volume manipulation when they were still starting their operation. I think many of them still hold "trading competition", which is a misleading name as it only counts how much volume you manage to make, and obviously those affected to price as well. Which makes it a price manipulation.

That just can't be legal. I guess SEC moves step b step and this was most urgent issue.

You're totally right ... it's very difficult to prosecute things like rugpulling. I think the only way is analyzing communications: if something can be interpreted as "promising a return" then you can be violating laws against misleading advertising.

I appreciate your honesty :) Cardano was a coin I initially also considered interesting (due to its whitepaper and PoS algorithm). However, the way it was conceived, with an enormous premine, and a completely centralized development - in the end, it can only be described as a security.

What's however a bit paradoxical is that the SEC move's idea is customer protection. But those customers who had bought at overvalued prices (maybe because they thought it was decentralized) are now losing money. Not beautiful. But what should the SEC do? The SEC hasn't pushed down Cardano coins directly, it were speculators considering the "security" categorization as "bad news" and a reason to short the coin. There is no way to fix this mess without collateral damage.

The whole point of the agreement is that that Binance US's structure will be more transparent after the agreement. So there is some benefit for the customers of the exchange, and that's what's important in this case. The rest of the crypto world should not be affected (only by price volatility).

- DAI - yep, it has lots of centralized elements.
- Monero - No. In earlier post I mentioned it as one of the few altcoins which are decentralized and not securities (see here for a list of those I consider decentralized (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5456378.msg62407618#msg62407618), with some edge cases like Dash)

For me it was pretty clear since I saw what the Howey test is about that many coins would fall under the "security" umbrella. The centralized management, profit expectations, advertising, PoS as "common enterprise" are all elements which can't be ignored, but were ignored by the exchanges. There were already many hints from SEC officials, I believe even still during the Trump presidency when Gensler still wasn't leading it.

The problem in my opinion was that the US exchanges depended deeply on income from trading with coins of this category. Maybe even some calculated that a fine would be less problematic than delisting all coins which were in danger to be declared "securities". It will be interesting how the end result of this "purging" will be: if they chose to delist all coins in danger, or register as securities exchange for the coins where this may be possible, etc.. Of course, if Ethereum is declared a security (which is perfectly possible in my opinion) then there will be more turbulences ahead.

I have not heard of the SEC making this about Bitcoin in some way or another. I think that mostly came from rumors and hearsay from the community after hearing the news of SEC going against multiple crypto. That became SEC going against all crypto and that became SEC is going against Bitcoin.

Its a laughable thought, because thats not true. The SEC is not going against Bitcoin nor could it, if it wanted to.

The best thing to do is not to spread further FUD about Bitcoin every time the broader mention of cryptocurrency is in the news. Anything which is not really decentralized is going to collapse, as it should.

It's probably because Binance, for example, is too closely associated with Bitcoin that it appears to many that Binance represents Bitcoin in one way or another. Of course, while Binance indeed helped a lot in giving people convenient access to Bitcoin, it simply isn't true. As a matter of fact, the way Binance does business with Bitcoin is exactly what Bitcoin finds problematic and tries to solve.

While I agree that "anything which is not really decentralized is going to collapse, as it should," I think it will not be happening soon. If we are to ask a crypto layman of the first thing that comes to his/her mind when talking of Bitcoin, I'm afraid he/she might not even mention decentralization but possibly Coinbase or Binance.

Things will certainly improve in the future. Time will come people won't anymore care when a centralized Bitcoin-related business collapses.

Is it naive to believe that what the SEC is doing is for the benefit of the community? Are they really such good people? You are right, today's world is operating when money and personal interests always come first, what the SEC is doing is for their benefit, they want to make more money from this market.

It is difficult to know how big the greed of the SEC is, although there is an agreement between the SEC and Binance, I believe everything is not over yet. Let time tell all, I predict the SEC will have another wave of attacks on us in the near future.

I think you should watch this news, and this is what the SEC has done for us, helping the community get rid of scammer, and centralized shitcoin projects. You guys are bitcoin maximalists, it's understandable that you hate CZ, but if you're in favor of the SEC it's actually a bit confusing.
You guys are bitcoin maximalists, it's understandable that you hate CZ, but if you're in favor of the SEC it's actually a bit confusing. Supporting the SEC is no different from helping the government regulate the cryptocurrency market, and bitcoin is a part of that.
https://twitter.com/bitcoinlfgo/status/1671176719737425921
https://i.ibb.co/s9JT16N/Screenshot-2023-06-21-214225.png

The SEC has a clear goal, and that is to protect the rules of a part of the financial system of the US - trading with "securities".

That's not about being "good people" or not. It's simply things a public authority has to do: enforcing rules set by the legislature of the country.

The SEC isn't entitled to "make money from this market" ;) I don't know the exact rules but I'd be quite confident the US laws have some strict protection in force to prevent SEC officials from "insider speculation".

You may be referring to possible corruption allegations (for example due to SBF's family ties to some SEC officials). But I also think if the SEC made something shady here it would be discovered, as a lot of eyes are on them. The US is not Argentina  :'(

Uhm, another bullshit.

SEC regulates securities. Bitcoin is not a security. Please do not incorporate centralized coins and tokens with Bitcoin. Bitcoin won't go down along with it.

Government regulation toward cryptocurrency is a certainty, without a doubt it will come sooner or later for whatever reason.

---

That is absurd at best. There is clarity between what is securities and what is not. The distinction is clear, there is no reason it should be perceived as a support toward SEC.


In fact, Gary Gensler already suggests way long ago that everything other than Bitcoin can be considered as a securities.

Indeed, at this time, the SEC is not trying to claim that Bitcoin is a security. 

Accordingly, according to the position of the SEC, Bitcoin is not subject to regulation by this government organization.  However, the SEC claims that it has every right to regulate tokens, altcoins, and stablecoins.  Thus, this state organization is trying to take control of the entire financial system of the virtual space. 

It should also not be forgotten that SEC executives have repeatedly spoken positively about the SBDC.  And SBDC is a direct competitor to Bitcoin. 

Therefore, we can conclude that further attacks on the first cryptocurrency by state regulators are still ahead.  In particular, accusations against Bitcoin are likely to be related to the fact that the functioning of its network is harmful to the environment.

They have only the right to regulate those altcoins and tokens which are securities. Over other altcoins they don't have any regulatory oversight.

And much more important: They only regulate trading activities in the US, not worldwide - i.e. for 4% of the world population only. That includes ICOs if they're also targeted to US investors or take place in the US. But altcoins can conduct ICOs outside of the US and exclude US investors, and they're not affected by the SEC at all (they may be affected by decisions of their own national authorities though).

I think you mean CBDCs, or what is SBDC? CBDC is not a direct competitor to Bitcoin. It's a competitor to stablecoins and virtual money providers like PayPal, because it's a fiat-linked asset.

Bitcoin currently is too volatile to be a competitor, it could however be a competitor in the future. The point is: CDBCs will not compete at the same market for the public that buys Bitcoin today. So CBDCs will only have minor incidence on Bitcoin's price. The only scenario where I can see harm to Bitcoin's price would be a Tether insolvency because CBDCs took away their clients. But I don't think this is highly likely.

And yet I didn't see you protesting about the fact that Bukele has never released proof of his Bitcoin buyouts, never protested against a centralized wallet requiring KYC, never protested about the government in control of your cryptos, and I know it already why because that was good for the price!!!

That's the difference between having some moral standards and doesn't use doubles ones depending on the APY  involved.
You're protecting CZ and Binance, a centralized entity that has no room in the original Satoshi world just because...it's against the government.
Did you also cheer on FTX and SBF breaking every government rule also? Guess not!

So, who should I support, the guy saying this:
Or a piece of shit that has only one purpose, of replacing every decentralized coin with one of his Binance coin?


When? (https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/06/06/us-doesnt-need-more-digital-currency-because-it-has-the-dollar-says-secs-gensler/)

I believe it's still the protection of those who are going to be victimized if those altcoins are not going to be regulated or something. They are going to be the ones protecting the people. It's best that people should know what to do and what to invest in so they understand and not lose anything.

Or how about we put ideology aside.

I believe SEC should also focus on which of those altcoin protocols/networks are technically feasible/which of them are actually working and which of them are scams. That would probably be the SEC's best chance of shutting them down, and issue an order to have those coins delisted.

What the SEC could do is to call a group of developers, gather them in a room, and debate why or why not some network is or isn't technically feasible.

It would be Adam Back and Gregory Maxwell vs. Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wood in a debate about something like the flaws in Ethereum's Solidity programming language, why POS does/doesn't work, or why Turing completeness in the blockchain is not good.

This is why we also need to look for the bright side of the regulation they do since it somehow those things are been implemented for protection of people to be away of those potential scams. Although sometimes there decisions are been so harsh and they had been trying to take out those what we think a good platforms, but its still understandable since maybe they don't have deep knowledge about crypto and they have old school outlook about financing. But for sure they can adopt it well if crypto regulation and education will be on highest scale.

If we want to stay away from scams as long as we avoid investing in shitcoins and memescoins... and only focus on bitcoin, then no one can scam us.  i wonder, why do we both want high returns from altcoins and want legal protection at the same time? if we make a profit, we celebrate and even evade taxes, but when we lose, we want justice to be there. Are we being too greedy?  regulation would be good to an extent, but it would also stop the hype and limit market volatility, and our profits would fall from there.

On behalf of the SEC, it wants to protect the interests and best interests of businesses and small investors. However, these actions actually have some problems when it comes to the development and popularity of bitcoin for everyone. Indirectly, they want to be able to strictly regulate bitcoin and not allow anything to get out of their control. If something can affect their interests and they don't know who is behind it, it is a danger to them, so they want to interfere. But such excessive interference damaged their reputation among investors and also caused many people to panic over these FUDs. Anyway, the current news related to this issue still has many hidden corners, and we should wait for a good piece of evidence related to the two sides.

The weather will clear after the rain :)
Like so many other things that have happened here I see the SEC as just a way to create drama in the crypto space, although people will eventually realize the potential of btc as well as the crypto market. The subjects listed by the SEC also need to be discussed more clearly than the allegation on one side.
For me the controversy with BinanceUS, I don't think anyone is wrong but it has brought a short-term panic, in other words, the powerful people who buy them for this purpose are right evil people for their own sake.

Do we have to have an opposite view everytime SEC says something in order to be bitcoin maxis? That would be just weird. I am not a bitcoin maximalist, far from it. And i don't see people in here defending SEC but defending decentralization.

Thing is, if you can make an altcoin die by stating it's a security, then it wasn't serving any purpose to begin with. And agreeing that some of the CEXes might have been involved in criminal activity doesn't make us bitcoin maximalists either. Cryptocurrencies will be regulated on some level anyway, we shall see what level that will be. Just fighting all regulations because they are regulations is pointless.

If you are talking about CBDCs, this is a false statement. We don't even know the tech CBDCs will be eventually build on. And bitcoin isn't competition to any fiat money, they are created for different purposes. Other one of them is created to maintain stability and control. So they have different purposes.

Because the SEC did this recently before the accusation against Binance and Coinbase, most people would think that the SEC is putting pressure on companies related to the digital currency or crypto industry. After this happened to Binance and Coinbase both big companies in this industry, it is very impossible to get rid of that from the minds of most communities here in the field of cryptocurrency.

Now, at least it is clear to the majority that what the SEC did was really only for the centralized ones that they think are shitcoins which the majority of the community in the crypto space is not.

I tend to disagree here that the SEC is right about Binance and CoinBase. Can you tell me what differentiate Ethereum from the likes of BNB, ADA, Solano etc these altcoins are all the same because they copied everything that Ethereum did during their ICO and replicate it in their own project. The thing here is that SEC has two rule books, one for their projects and people good to them examples are FTX, Ethereum, Avalanche etc and the other for Binance and majority of the Altcoins. This is bad and the funny thing here that people that are calling for the heads of Binance are the sympathizers of FTX, where was SEC when SBF was scamming people of their money, making political donations to politicians, and I believe if the exchange did not blow up, he will still be championed has the JP morgan of Crypto. Whether we like it or not, Crypto is here to stay and we need to allow it to flourish, so the earlier the better they make rules to govern it, I believe their fear is that people will find a way around this rule but how can you officiate a game without a written down rule to govern it

I agree partly. Of course they cannot simply "shut them down" if they weren't launched in the US - but of course if they were delisted from all US exchanges, their success chance should be reduced drastically as the US is an important market. And yes, they should concentrate on indicators which make it likely a coin is a scam.

However I think really determining "technical feasibility" here is difficult to achieve. Let's have the question for example: "Is Proof of stake a feasible algorithm?"

Proof of Stake makes some assumptions about parameters like liveness and synchronicity of nodes, but if these assumptions are true, then they seem to work (empirically - Ethereum isn't constantly attacked successfully, and even much smaller coins seem to "just work"). What every Bitcoin maximalist will tell you, however, is that these protocols work only because the liveness/synchronicity is achieved through centralization.

As both points of view could be considered valid, I guess thus it is impossible to determine in a clear way if an algorithm works or not.

Thus I think that SEC and similar authorities should simply concentrate on regulating the communication which is required from centralized altcoin dev groups, in the same way securities issuers (e.g. public corporations) are regulated. That means for example, that they have to inform people about the main characteristics of the coin, a possible pre-mine or dev fee, the way the tokens are used (e.g. in the case of utility tokens) and of course the inherent risks - above all, that the coin may be worthless if the dev team shuts down. And also restrictions: that they can't promise any kind of benefit (as long as there is no fixed interest rate, for example).

The way the European MiCa regulation did this, seems to me a feasible way (requiring a whitepaper with these informations from all centralized altcoins, including ETH, which can also be provided by traders if the coin issuers aren't providing it).

I agreed that what SEC do to proven centralized crypto to make it a security and demand for authorization of exchange is more right than wrong and they not targeting Bitcoin, but it's not because they don't want but because they can't if they have even slight chance to do the same to Bitcoin they will. And even with what they are doing now, Bitcoin still got the collateral damage.

I don't believe that SEC doing it to protect the public, if they were protecting the public at all, there is more cheating stock broker than unauthorized crypto securities out there need to be punished.

But not all investors know how to use there money in terms of investment and the only thing they know is they can earn  some profit bt trading that's the reason why those shitcoins exist they exploit the other thinking of newbies that they can earn a lot of money out there. Maybe the disadvantage only in regulation happen is taxation but other than that maybe we can see positive things since from that we can potentially see bitcoin will be declared as legal tender if this is well used and presented well to government also to more people.

Whether we like it or not, however, all states will be forced to regulate the circulation of cryptocurrency on their territory. This is a direct responsibility of the state in the field of the financial sector of the economy. All the statements of some participants in the cryptocurrency market that the cryptocurrency is a decentralized system and therefore cannot be regulated by anyone is nothing more than a wishful thinking. No state can allow large amounts of funds to be circulated on its territory, which it cannot control at all. Therefore, it is worth recognizing that states will regulate the cryptocurrency market as a whole. For the cryptocurrency and the participants in this market, this is both good and bad. It all depends on how far-sighted and balanced such regulation will be.