Ripple Skewers SEC: Staking, Not a Security? 🤔

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  • Ripple, with a twinkle in its digital eye, pronounced crypto staking a mere pastime, not a security—especially in those wild and permissionless protocols.
  • ICOs, however, those wily chameleons, are indeed securities; they masquerade as ‘investment contracts’—oh, the audacity!

In a bold and rather cheeky move, Ripple has found itself in the limelight once more, beseeching the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to refrain from lumping staking and yield programs in with the likes of securities. This plea follows the agency’s recent appeal for public comment on the rather perplexing status of crypto assets.

In a missive to the agency, Ripple opined,

“For the sake of clarity and to avoid the appearance of inconsistency, the Commission ought to affirm that staking and yield-generating arrangements, which rely on the automated whims of a public, permissionless network and do not involve a discernible issuer or counterparty making investment commitments, are as far from securities as one can get.”

Ripple contended that branding crypto staking or yield farming as securities is a matter of business model and the dramatis personae involved. However, protocol-based shenanigans with no discernible counterparty should be exempt from the security label.

“These arrangements lack theInvestment with a definable counterparty, unlike traditional securities, which rest on a contractual quid pro quo between an investor and an issuer, who expends managerial efforts to fatten profits.”

The firm postulated that ICOs (those Initial Coin Offerings, so full of promise) enable founders to amass capital for blockchain or digital asset creation, promising investors tokens in return. Thus, they might be likened to securities or ‘investment contracts.’

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This public discourse is part of the agency’s grand endeavor to demystify the security status of crypto assets. Indeed, on Friday, the agency hosted its inaugural roundtable on the subject. Commissioner Hester Pierce is optimistic that such powwows will bring much-needed clarity to the field.

“Today’s learned panelists must tackle definitional queries—so we can construct the regulatory shed, a sturdy and functional abode for the sector.”

During the roundtable, the panelists hashed out various perspectives on what constitutes ‘crypto securities’ and how to apply the Howey test. It bears mentioning that the dismissed lawsuits against Coinbase and Ripple were entwined with allegations of securities law transgressions.

A comprehensive report from the SEC’s crypto task force, informed by these roundtables, will presumably set the rules for the crypto realm.

Ripple’s legal maestro, Stuart Alderoty, has implored the agency to stay within its jurisdiction while forging a new framework for the sector.

“We exhort the SEC’s Crypto Task Force to maintain focus: revert to first principles, stay within its statutory domain, and finally deliver clarity, for heaven’s sake.”

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2025-03-22 15:10