We should never underestimate how far the system will go in an attempt to run down the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Sometimes it may appear as though the Securities and Exchange Commission of the US is independently attacking crypto but my gut feeling says that there's a lot of governmental bodies in on this.
Just about 11 - 12 hours ago, I wrote about possible ways we could build a p2p marketplace on-chain without sacrificing security or decentralization.
I cited the need for such a protocol in the growing crypto industry, the single biggest reason is that for crypto to work - extensively, it has to be packed with protocols that enable value to flow in and out without the need of a centralized entity that can be controlled by the government at will.
The ongoing argument the SEC holds up against crypto is that the majority of its altcoins offerings are “Securities”.
I've read about this a hell number of times and almost every article seems to point out that crypto does not fall into a well-defined category in the law and hence fails to stand true to the securities claims, however, the SEC is relentless as its focus is to charge protocols and tear them down, causing investors to lose money in the process whilst claiming to be protecting the same investors.
Someone needs to slap these guys in the face, but the US has so many laws that well deserved slaps cannot be administered, quite sad in a sense.
Today Uniswap Labs received a Wells notice from the Enforcement Division of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), notifying us that they are planning to recommend a legal action against us. In the meantime, our entire suite of current products will continue to be available, and we will continue to ship new products. Taking into account the SEC's ongoing lawsuits against Coinbase and others as well as their complete unwillingness to provide clarity or a path to registration to those operating lawfully within the U.S., we can only conclude that this is the latest political effort to target even the best actors building technology on blockchains.
Despite SEC rhetoric that "most" tokens are securities, the reality is that tokens are a digital file format, like a pdf or spreadsheet, and can store many kinds of value. They are not intrinsically securities, just as every sheet of paper is not a stock certificate. The overwhelming volume of traded tokens are definitively not securities – they are stablecoins, community and utility tokens, and commodities like Ethereum and Bitcoin. And tokens traded on secondary markets like Uniswap are not investment contracts. In the circumstance where a token may represent a security, the SEC has refused to create a path for businesses to register.
Whenever I read shits like this, it's always near close to make me go nuts cause WTF?
The first thought is usually something like: since the SEC is claiming that Uniswap is offering securities on its platform, that should mean that every road constructed offers a platform for criminal services and the constructors should be arrested, no?
I mean, closely looking at the facts, Uniswap is merely a road, from whence various trades takes place. The protocol is not the party issuing the assets being traded but because it is the route, the SEC’s argument is that it “offers” the trading of securities.
Quite comical because the only token Uniswap offers is the UNI token and given how that token came into existence, I doubt it qualifies as a security under the Howey test.
Then it hit me, it's about the volumes and fees. Truly, a crime is often measured against the ones involved, if you're rich, be prepared to earn the ultimate penalties, if not, well, you know you're simply nobody's problem but a waste of time if given the attention.
A good example of this can be found in digital assets thefts. Using content platforms/the media for example, so many small media platforms and businesses steal content from large media companies but never get sued, but the second OpenAI does it, boom, everybody is talking about suing for billions lost in revenue.
The SEC, similarly, could have gone after those so-called securities tokens developers but chose that they are in no position to afford an handsome settlement fee so they go after Uniswap given that the platform is the biggest in the space - hence should be making a lot of money.
DeFi needs to act fast, this is a sign amongst many other signs we've seen coming this far. They will try to stop DeFi from being totally independent and we have to act before that happens.
One of the ways we can fight this war is by building the necessary protocols to move value in and out, open-source major Backend and Frontend codes to ensure that events of sanctions do not significantly affect trading as new protocols can be made live within minutes for continuous operation.
This is an urgency.