I've been watching the dissents and statements from SEC Commissioner Peirce for a while now but the latest really grabbed my attention. If you're not aware, Commissioner Peirce has routinely pushed back on crypto enforcement actions and lack of regulatory guidelines, offering a bit of sanity in the chaos.
I'm going to guess not many SEC Commissioners have ever had a fanbase, but Commissioner Peirce has a growing one. This week's statement in response to the SEC's enforcement action and settlement with Impact Theory LLC is the latest display of Commissioners Peirce & Uyeda's rational and measured approach to the crypto space as it relates to securities. This especially stood out to many in the space:
The handful of company and purchaser statements cited by the order are not the kinds of promises that form an investment contract. We do not routinely bring enforcement actions against people that sell watches, paintings, or collectibles along with vague promises to build the brand and thus increase the resale value of those tangible items.
This stood out to me so much so that I felt it was time to start minting these statements and rulings onchain. And L2s make this cost effective to do. Figured I might as well have some fun with it and make it nounish of course, although with the full statement in the description, on the blockchain forever.
Since it only costs about 28cents now to put this onchain via L2s, thought it was time to put the statements/dissents from my fave Commissioner onchain. Free to mint on Base via Zora. Details
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That statement echoes something I've said many times -- there is no way that all NFTs are securities. Are some securities under the Howey test? Certainly. Are all of them? Definitely not.
Nike sells sneakers. Some Nike sneaker drops are purchased strictly with the intent to resell for a profit. Due to Nike's efforts, these buyers purchase the sneakers as a speculative asset with the hopes of reselling and making a profit. So are sneakers a security now? Because if the SEC is going to point to all NFTs as securities, then they will need to do the same for sneakers, baseball cards and, as the Commissioners pointed out, watches.
If you read the full statement, you'll also see nuance threaded throughout. The Commissioners clearly indicate that they don't necessarily care for the actions by this particular company but they are able to separate that from the whole industry. Nuance is lost on most administrative agencies and certainly lost on the current SEC Chair.
So I've put this statement onchain and it can be minted here OR as a collectible for this post. All funds raised from Zora rewards or from the collectible mint in this post will be donated to Stand with Cypto, Coinbase's effort to bring about reasonable crypto legislation through education so we can have guardrails that make sense.
And I'll be doing more of this with new rulings and statements so that we mark these moments and hopefully do some good in the process.
You can mint this NFT with the full statement in the description on Base via Zora or mint the collectible in this post. All proceeds will go to Stand with Crypto via shield minting.
