The only question here is whether cryptocurrency is a security or a commodity. Securities fall under regulation by the SEC (SECURITIES and Exchange Commission). Commodities are regulated by the CFTC (COMMODITIES Future Trading Commission). SEC Chair Gensler agrees that Bitcoin is a commodity, but thinks everything else is a security.[1] Securities are much more tightly regulated than commodities. The SEC is making it clear with these complaints that they believe certain cryptocurrencies are securities.
A court might disagree. The CFTC could potentially disagree, although yesterday's agreement makes me think they may have given up on that to some extent. But I actually think it's pretty clear that any cryptocurrency project offering a reward for "staking" or similar is a security.
It's shocking to see the similarity to how you talk about this product compared to the founders of Robinhood. They've been very successful at tricking people into gambling away their money in the name of "investing." This is essentially the same thing at a smaller scale. This is a bad product for most people, who will silently lose money over time by moving money in and out of the stock market. Perhaps you're initial, wealthier customer base will be able to make use of such a service, but if you end up achieving any amount of scale, you will invariably end up wrecking someone financially. I hope you enjoy the moment when someone can't make rent because the stock market had an off week.
So you built a financial product to convince people to forgo FDIC insurance on their primary checking account? What an evil premise for a company. That's despicable. I'm sure almost none of your customers will understand their inherent cost of repeatedly moving money in and out of a volatile asset, not to mention that this concept would ruin the economy if widely adopted, because the FDIC was invented for a reason. I hope the SEC destroys you.
Really great move by Twitter. There's lots of amazing programmers in African countries like Ghana and Nigeria, but not enough employers are taking advantage. I suspect Twitter will be the first of many companies to start hiring in the region.
I'm going to give you a longer answer, taking your concerns in good faith, since most of the responses you have so far are fairly combative.
We need to start by recognizing that, although the Constitution is an important original source in understanding how our government functions, we have over 200 years of Constitutional interpretation that lies on top of it. You are welcome to make a Constitutional argument that goes against the existing jurisprudence, and Constitutional interpretation does change over time, but it does so only slowly. One of the most important principles in Constitutional interpretation is that of stari decisis, or issues which have already been decided. In almost all circumstances, courts adhere to precedence. This isn't always the case, but when you are fighting against the current understanding of the Constitution, you need to realize that you're fighting an uphill battle, and frame your arguments as such.
So where are we in our understanding of these issues? First, the Supreme Court has literally ruled that the Tenth Amendment is useless. Specifically, in US v Sprague (1931, SCOTUS ruled that the Tenth Amendment is a "truism" that "added nothing to the [Constitution] as originally ratified."[1] It was later used to create an anti-commandeering understanding, which in this circumstance just means that the federal government can't pass a law that requires states to enforce a federal mask mandate. There might be a public health exception to that though, but that's where the tenth amendment would be relevant.
You also need to understand that SCOTUS has repeatedly expanded the commerce clause to cover basically everything. The federal government can pass pretty much any law they want, say it affects interstate commerce, and win. You don't have to like that interpretation, but everyone follows it. It was only during the Rehnquist Court that a few exceptions were carved out, but they're very, very narrow. The most famous example was that the court ruled that the federal government couldn't ban handguns in schools under the commerce clause. But for anything even vaguely interstate, and a contagious virus certainly counts, the federal government is allowed to pass pretty much any law it wants.
The courts also tend to be pretty generous towards allowing emergency powers to deal with a genuine crisis. I expect that the federal government could do pretty much anything it wants to deal with COVID. I'm sure they'd allow a national lockdown by executive order right now. A legislative mask mandate would be completely non-controversial from a Constitutional perspective.
I understand how you could assume that these issues aren't about minorities, but they really all are. Each of these issues barely touches white people while affecting minorities deeply.
- Felony convictions: Black and latino men are convicted of felonies at much higher rates than any other population. In 2016, 7.44% of black people had their voting rights stripped for felony convictions.[1] Over 1% of all black people in the United States are currently incarcerated, compared with about .2% for white people.[2]
- DC in majority minority, with 46% black residents.[3] Puerto Rico in 98.9% hispanic.[4]
- Citizenship: Over 800,000 people have enrolled in DACA, mostly of Latin American and East Asian origin. [5]
They are ineligible for citizenship. Among those eligible to apply for Citizenship, many are from Canada or Europe.[6] Our immigration laws are setup to favor high school immigrants, who are far more likely to be white than the immigrant population as a whole. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it means our voting population is far more white than our resident population.
- Disenfranchisement: This is far more piecemeal, but southern states routinely take actions that just so happen to make it more difficult for minorities to vote rather than white people. I recommend listening to [7] if you're interested, which covers a specific recent circumstance in Florida, with a few examples from other states. It's no coincidence when eliminated polling places and dropboxes just so happen to always be in Black neighborhoods.
Remember, the voting rights marches of the 1960s weren't about giving black people the right to vote, that happened in 1870. They were about how certain states had made it so difficult for black people to vote that it was essentially impossible. Sure, many black people vote in these states today, but that doesn't mean that they have an equal ability to vote. The measures aren't as strong as they once were, but they still exist.
This move isn't as radical as I'd like, but I genuinely think it might stick. Having Ford on board is a big deal. Seems like the big auto makers feel like it's a "reasonable" timeframe. Would love to see this take effect sooner, and also include an eventual ban/restriction on used gas-powered vehicles, but it looks like we may finally be making a meaningful change.
A court might disagree. The CFTC could potentially disagree, although yesterday's agreement makes me think they may have given up on that to some extent. But I actually think it's pretty clear that any cryptocurrency project offering a reward for "staking" or similar is a security.
[1] https://www.axios.com/2022/06/28/bitcoin-is-the-only-coin-th...