Bankless: Stop pretending that cryptocurrency regulation is difficult

Author: Ryan Sean Adams, Bankless; Compiler: Deng Tong, Golden Finance

Regulating cryptocurrency is easy. Many regulators and legislators are deliberately obtuse.

Protect us from the next FTX, not the next airdrop.

Of course, tokens can be securities. This does not mean that all tokens are securities; some can be collectibles, some can be currency, and some can be commodities.

A token can be anything that can be programmed.

This is axiomatic and has been for over a decade.

Yes, tokens can act like stocks if they manage on-chain cash flow generated by on-chain code.

No, this does not make them securities.

Online stocks do not require the settlement of a legal physical space or the transparency of 10,000 documents. For Internet stocks, the code is the regulator, anyone can be an auditor, and the asset is "view the source code."

It would be foolish to view Internet stocks solely as securities. It's a great way to weaken the economy, control capital, and consolidate dwindling power... but it's also stupid.

No, this doesn’t make crypto people criminals who “don’t want to be regulated.” We just don't want to impose the rules of 1933 on these new internet properties... because that would be stupid.

Existing regulations remain in effect when assets are off-chain, held by intermediaries, or require the trust of a third-party custodian. Nothing to update.

Go and defeat the liar. We want you to protect us from the next FTX, not the next airdrop.

A sensible set of regulators and lawmakers can put the United States on a smart path to maximizing crypto opportunities in the short term.

They pretend it’s hard, but it’s not.