Currency is not a security

But the 74-year-old Howey test to which the SEC has clung in its evaluation of digital tokens has ushered in what Commissioner Peirce rightly described in her recent speech as "a regulatory Catch 22." She continued:

Would-be networks cannot get their tokens out into people’s hands because their tokens are potentially subject to the securities laws.  However, would-be networks cannot mature into a functional or decentralized network that is not dependent upon a single person or group to carry out the essential managerial or entrepreneurial efforts unless the tokens are distributed to and freely transferable among potential users, developers, and participants of the network.

Peirce’s proposal is not the first attempt at partial regulatory relief for digital token projects. In June 2018, the SEC’s Director of Corporation Finance, William Hinman, stated that decentralized ownership of tokens, what Peirce refers to as "getting tokens . . . into people’s hands," would mean they were not securities, even if the tokens had met the Howey test before the network became "truly decentralized."

This is about allowing the sandbox to develop without government interference. CATO has a new banking and regulation pro that know this stuff and he is evaluating a  safe harbor approach to this.

Why isn't Libra moving forward?    Mainly because Zuck own the medium, Facebook. Libra is about using face book for payment transaction, and Zuck has not implemented the Libra transaction protocols on facebook.  Zuck is not motivated, though I do not understand why, the only cost is another large wad of javascript grinding away on our machines. He could make it an option with warning:

Enable Libra and get another large shitload of javascript.  Regulation is not Zucks problem, lack of trusted miners is not Zuck's problem.  Zuck has another problem, dunno what it is.  Why hasn't Apple moved forward? Why is google stuck on this? It sounds more like a behind the scenes collusion.  These companies may have large investments in the unicorn lenders who are quite powerfully deploying the S&L technology industry wide. Maybe they are taking the sly approach, behind the scenes, keeping their name out of it but still taking the profits.

When companies are making billions by executing the sandbox rules then there is no need for anything government, government has already been sidestepped.