Re: Unlawful Unregistered Securities, DID and VC

On Tue, Jun 13, 2023 at 5:19 PM Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
wrote:

> For a more comprehensive understanding, I recommend reading the original
> SEC guidance, which you can find at this non paywalled link:
>
> https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2023/comp-pr2023-102.pdf
>
> This document provides thorough case studies, including insights from blog
> posts, Twitter posts, and transcripts. For an illustrative and relevant
> example, you might find the Filecoin / Protocol Labs case study
> particularly informative, which is covered in parts 163-189.
>

I'm very uncomfortable with this discussion by our community (ccg) and
standards (did). We are not qualified.

I read through the Filecoin/IPFS portion of this doc, and it is very biased
and is based on unsettled law. They did not mention the utility use of the
tokens, which in some jurisdictions (Wyoming and a few other states) should
be considered a factor.

The key point is that these topics are unsettled. There are many
congressmen and senators that are very unhappy with how the SEC is handling
these matters and are working on bipartisan bills. There are also cases
before judges where they appear to be critical of the SEC approach even
before making judgment. Other parts of the Federal Government are also
critical of the SEC here.

Though I'm not a big fan of Filecoin for other reasons, they went to a lot
of effort to do the best practices of the time and avoided many bad
practices that were common. I, too, want us to avoid scams and bad
practices, but I don't know where the line is.

So to say that we need to remove, for instance, Filecoin-related DID
methods because they are included in an SEC document feels to me to be very
premature. I suspect that this may not be settled law in the US for a few
years. In addition, this will likely only be US — it feels like the UK is
going the other way. This is the WORLD-wide-web consortium. What if a token
used in a blockchain becomes illegal in the US, but is legal in the UK?
What to do then?

-- Christopher Allen

Received on Wednesday, 14 June 2023 15:53:56 UTC