{"id":15421,"date":"2025-02-27T22:47:52","date_gmt":"2025-02-27T22:47:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=15421"},"modified":"2025-02-27T22:47:52","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T22:47:52","slug":"sec-publishes-memecoin-stance-reinforcing-hester-peirces-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=15421","title":{"rendered":"SEC Publishes Memecoin Stance Reinforcing Hester Peirce\u2019s Comments"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is officially washing its hands of memecoins.<\/p>\n

The federal securities regulator said that memecoins \u2014 which it defined as a \u201ctype of crypto asset inspired by internet memes, characters, current events or trends for which the promoter seeks to attract an enthusiastic online community to purchase the memecoin and engage in its trading\u201d \u2014\u00a0are more like collectibles than securities, according to a staff statement<\/a> from the SEC\u2019s corporate finance division published on Thursday. Because memecoins have \u201climited or no use or functionality,\u201d they do not meet the definition of a security under the Howey Test and are therefore outside the SEC\u2019s jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

The statement is a formalization of comments made by Commissioner Hester Peirce<\/a> \u2014\u00a0the leader of the SEC\u2019s newly-created Crypto Task Force, which has been at the vanguard of the agency\u2019s about-face on crypto regulation since it was formed in January \u2014\u00a0earlier this month during an interview with Bloomberg TV. In the interview, Peirce said that \u201cmany\u201d of the memecoins on the market fall outside the SEC\u2019s jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf people want to buy a token or product that lacks a clear long-term value proposition, they should feel free but should not be surprised some day if the price drops,\u201d Peirce wrote in her roadmap for crypto regulation published earlier this month. \u201cIn this country, people generally have a right to make decisions for themselves, but the counterpart to that wonderful American liberty is the equally wonderful American expectation that people must decide for themselves, not look to Mama Government to tell them what to do or not to do, nor to bail them out when they do something that turns out badly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such legal interpretations from the securities regulator don’t have the weight of formal regulation, but industries overseen by the SEC and other federal regulators tend to follow these kinds of staff statements closely. The infamous Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 121 \u2014 guidance known as SAB 121 that was offered by agency accounting staffers \u2014 caused turmoil in the crypto sector and the bankers who felt constrained by it until the bulletin was erased by the SEC’s current leadership. In this case, a footnote in the staff memecoin statement points out that it’s “not a rule, regulation, guidance, or statement” approved by the commission.<\/p>\n

Though Peirce has made it clear that American investors are responsible for doing their own due diligence on the tokens they buy, the SEC has not ruled out the possibility of stepping in and using its enforcement powers in the case where memecoins are used to evade securities laws.<\/p>\n

\u201cNotwithstanding the foregoing, this statement does not extend to the offer and sale of meme coins that are inconsistent with the descriptions set forth above, or products that are labeled \u201cmeme coins\u201d in an effort to evade the application of the federal securities laws by disguising a product that otherwise would constitute a security,\u201d the staff statement said. \u201cAs noted above, the Division will evaluate the economic realities of the particular transaction.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is officially washing its hands of memecoins. The federal securities regulator said that memecoins \u2014 which it defined as a \u201ctype of crypto asset inspired by internet memes, characters, current events or trends for which the promoter seeks to attract an enthusiastic online community to purchase the memecoin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-15421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15421\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}