On 16/06/11 12:34 AM, John Levine wrote:
Bitcoins aren't securities, because they don't act like securities.
Right. Or more particularly, he asked: "... I canbt help wondering why Bitcoins arenbt unregistered securities." And the answer is that the registrar of securities defines what the securites are, and the SEC's definition is a long way away from BitCoin. "Uh-oh? Maybe someone will be hearing from the SEC?" No, that's not how the SEC works. The SEC is a responding organisation. They only deal when there is a complaint. Even when there is a complaint, they will try their best to ignore it. C.f, Madoff, which was dealing in securities. If there is an interest, it will come from UST, via USSS.
There's no promise to pay, no nominal value, and you don't have a claim on some part of something else.
Nod. A security is a contract where something is secured by one party to the benefit of another. We're missing the three components here, so where do we start? Who's going to complain and what's their complaint? Rock on... iang _______________________________________________ cryptography mailing list cryptography@randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE