The SEC claims that cryptocurrency mining devices are securities. If the reader thinks this is a joke, here’s a link to Bloomberg discussing a recent case of a legal attack on a US mining company. It discusses the case of a court ruling, not just an official’s opinion, against the mining company Green United LLC:
«Green United LLC failed to persuade a federal court to toss an SEC civil fraud suit against it on grounds that its cryptocurrency mining “box,” or hardware, customers didn’t enter into securities transactions with it.»
Green United in turn disputed those allegations in a statement:
«The suit doesn’t contain a single allegation of a single victim or even an investor losing any money.
Additionally, they try to change the law by classifying hosted mining as a security, a practice performed by numerous public companies.»
It’s no accident that the last quote emphasizes «public companies» that are allegedly practicing mining illegally — the whole thing smells fried.
It turns out that at the moment the SEC in its war against crypto is advancing on two flanks: NFT and mining.
Earlier we wrote about the legal attack on the NFT-industry by the SEC, which in early September said that NFTs have the characteristics of a security-asset, and therefore their turnover should be licensed. The SEC decided to try to prove this thesis on the example of a large NFT exchange — OpenSea.