> Well, it is something of a he said/she said between Coinbase and the SEC.
Not really. The law has been exactly the same since the 1940s. Apparently though Coinbase has decided to go all in on SBF's strategy of pretending to be too dumb to understand the law.
Coinbase arguing that they should be allowed to sell illegal unregistered securities because the SEC said they could sell securities is like CVS arguing that should be allowed to sell cocaine because the government told them they could be a drug store.
> Unfortunately the CFTC has another view and they both can’t be right
Of course they can. Whether something is a commodity has absolutely nothing to do with whether something is a security. They are completely orthogonal concepts.
The above is obviously false. This is why you should not learn about finance and economics on HN, many users have no idea what they write. Something is either a security or a commodity, these are legal terms and treated differently by law. The status may be undermined but it can not be both.
Why can't they both be right? Futures aren't securities except in certain cases, and if bitcoin is a currency then bitcoin futures wouldn't be under SEC jurisdiction.
Not really. The law has been exactly the same since the 1940s. Apparently though Coinbase has decided to go all in on SBF's strategy of pretending to be too dumb to understand the law.
Coinbase arguing that they should be allowed to sell illegal unregistered securities because the SEC said they could sell securities is like CVS arguing that should be allowed to sell cocaine because the government told them they could be a drug store.