SEC has concluded that DAO tokens are a “security,” which should be regulated. The report spends a lot of time establishing that the DAO was in fact a centralized organization, describing actions that run parallel to those of any struggling start-up which has actual control over its resources.
The ultimate conclusion of the report is that “virtual organizations” and those interested in investing in them should exercise a healthy amount of caution, because some of these newfound securities may find themselves in trouble with the agency down the road.
The way for this industry to handle the coming horde of luddite regulatory bodies is to make them obsolete before they truly have sunk their claws in. This is to say, the DAO and its “curators” should exercise some of their uncommon power to enforce standards which make these hacks literally impossible. Perhaps not an upgrade to the standard itself, but a new standard altogether by which ERC20 and other smart contract tokens can be tested before deployment.
Read the whole news here. So finally the SEC of USA has issued its stand on the proliferation and popularity of Initial Coin Offering. The official stand is that they should be treated as securities and hence has to be regulated akin to the regulations imposed on companies having their own Initial Public Offerings or IPO.
Now, I am wondering: Will this eventually affect ICOs of projects based outside of USA or will the SEC limits its own power on those based on USA and the participation of US citizens? Already there are ICOs that purposely avoided participation from those based in USA and USA citizens based anywhere.
