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ARTICLE · 13 DECEMBER 2018

SEC Declares Bitcoin And Ether As Non-Securities

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On Thursday, June 14, 2018, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Director of Corporate Finance, William Hinman (Hinman), announced that the commission would not be treating Ether or Bitcoin as securities.

CanadaTechnology
Michael Weizel
Michael Weizel
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On Thursday, June 14, 2018, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) Director of Corporate Finance, William Hinman (Hinman), announced that the commission would not be treating Ether or Bitcoin as securities. The SEC's announcement is in line with the recent comments of SEC Chairman, Jay Clayton, who recently noted the difference between cryptocurrencies and digital tokens, saying that cryptocurrencies as "replacements for sovereign currencies" were not securities, while digital assets revolving around a venture are often securities.

The SEC's announcement was delivered via a speech by Hinman at Yahoo Finance's All Market Summit: Crypto (a transcript of which can be found here), where Hinman spoke in depth about how securities laws apply to digital assets. His comments focused on how the entire economic reality of any given digital asset must be considered. In making this point, Hinman likened utility tokens to the oranges being grown on the parcels

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