No?
The SEC doesn't need an exemption for bitcoin, read the definitions of the Securities Act of 1933, the denomination was never NEVER a concern of the SECm even 80 years ago.
You're not being realistic. Trying to adapt current SEC laws to Bitcoin is like trying to adapt the the law to the Internet. It's just not possible to rely on laws from 80 years ago to govern technologies 100 years+ into the future. That is the problem with the set of laws, they are too old to make sense anymore and are now a detriment to progress.
I'm not saying we shouldn't have laws in place, but these laws are not technologically and socially unenforceable. You're not going to be able to keep the current set of laws and have a Bitcoin stock exchange.
The exemptions already exist for the size of the offerings these. There are like a dozen (exaggeration) regulation D exemptions that the "publicly traded" bitcoin denominated companies can already have used. And this has nothing to do with the pending crowdfunding regulations
Crowdfunding legislation doesn't really apply for Bitcoin. It applies for dollars and has limits for different kinds of investors and other rules which are technologically and socially unenforceable.
Trying to enforce the SEC rules is like trying to enforce these rules with a group of friends playing for chips at a poker table. You simply cannot stop people from playing poker, from gambling, from making deals like these and technology allows all sorts of barter deals which weren't even possible before. The current laws simply don't govern or apply to Bitcoin because Bitcoin wasn't thought of when those laws were made 80 years ago. Ask any lawyer and you'll see why all the centralized exchanges are shutting down, it's simply not possible to regulate with the current set of laws in place.
Regarding the exchanges themselves, I am not that familiar with the regulations, but I'm going to go on a limb and say the primary denomination isn't an issue either. So neither Congress or the SEC are the real concern, FINRA on the other hand would be a concern, and they are basically an extension of the SEC but thats another issue
The problem is there is no definition of what Bitcoin is. There is no definition as to what a Bitcoin exchange is. The SEC doesn't even have jurisdiction to deal with it because its taking place on the Internet. So in a decentralized exchange there is no concept for where the exchange takes place. You can say the SEC applies globally or something based on the law as it was written 80 years ago but that is not technologically or socially enforceable.
Trying to enforce those laws would be like trying to enforce the law on copyright infringement. We who know technology know what is going to happen in this space and they who make laws should be consulting with us. If a lawmaker or if law enforcement would like to contact me and ask me about how to deal with this I'll give my opinions on the matter for free. If lobbyists or think tanks form then I'll help with policy.
But the SEC 80+ years ago had no concept at all of this. The crowdfunding legislation was designed for dollars and has no concept of Bitcoin. At best Bitcoin is barter, so when you try to talk about who is or who isn't an accredited investor and put dollar limits on it, that is not really possible. It's also not possible to stop people from forming unlicensed exchanges and it never was possible. So basically there is no enforceable regulation and the DATA authority has to explain Bitcoin and determine how to deal with/nurture innovation while also figuring out how to regulate when the time comes.
Right now it's not really time to regulate but when you shut down all the unregulated central exchanges then unregulated decentralized exchanges will form. I'd like a regulated decentralized exchange or a regulated central exchange, but its impossible to do it with the regulation on the books from the SEC. It costs too much to start an exchange, it has weird limits for accredited or unaccredited investors which cannot be enforced technologically or socially, so the only thing you can do is ignore the situation until a legal structure is in place to allow a regulated licensed exchange or deal with the decentralized unregulated exchanges until enough political pressure builds to pass the laws exempting cryptocurrency exchanges from the current regulation and then figure out what regulations to put based on actual studies and research of the cryptocurrency market.
I wish there were another way but that is where we are. There also is ambiguity with mining Bitcoins but that wont stop people from becoming miners even at the risk of being declared money transmitters someday. There will be miners until the rules are clear on what a miner is.
You are confusing two different issues. One is currency and the other is investments. If you want to raise capital it doesn't matter what currency it's in because you'll still spend it anyways for capital expenditures or other expenses. BTW in response to the retarded notion that companies in euros don't list in dollars feel free to look up something called ADR.
That is not what I'm saying. I'm saying the current SEC laws did not even know what crowd funding was until recently and there was no concept on how to deal with it until Kickfunder and other technologies pushed the issue. There would be no crowdfunding legislation if technology companies didn't push forward.
I'm saying that you cannot wait for the SEC or politicians to make legislation to determine the technology. The technology should determine the legislation and regulation. I'm not claiming there should be no regulation, or that there should be no rules. I'm claiming that the current set of rules were blindly put in place and don't make much sense for cryptocurrencies or the cryptocurrency economy. China banned virtual currencies because they didn't understand QQcoin. That stupidity cost them an economic opportunity where China could have been the center of the global virtual currency economy.
The US government is stupid enough to do the same sort of thing by demanding impossible regulatory barriers of entry for Bitcoin exchanges. The difference here is Bitcoin is already global so if you ban Bitcoin stock exchanges in the USA they'll benefit everyone but US citizens which damages the economy of the USA. The decentralized exchange is really the only way for US citizens to be a part of the Bitcoin stock market economy and there is no discussion going on in congress about how to regulate any of it which means they probably don't care.
