Von Ralf Keuper

In ihrem Report of Inves­ti­ga­ti­on Pur­su­ant to Sec­tion 21(a) of the Secu­ri­ties Exch­an­ge Act of 1934: The DAO setzt sich die ame­ri­ka­ni­sche Bör­sen­auf­sicht SEC kri­tisch mit den sog. Initi­al Coin Offe­rings und spe­zi­ell mit dem Pro­jekt The DAO, das vor einem Jahr hohe Wel­len schlug, aus­ein­an­der.

In ihrer Pres­se­mit­tei­lung hält die SEC dazu fest:

 The SEC’s Report of Inves­ti­ga­ti­on found that tokens offe­red and sold by a “vir­tu­al” orga­niza­ti­on known as “The DAO” were secu­ri­ties and the­r­e­fo­re sub­ject to the fede­ral secu­ri­ties laws. The Report con­firms that issuers of dis­tri­bu­ted led­ger or block­chain tech­no­lo­gy-based secu­ri­ties must regis­ter offers and sales of such secu­ri­ties unless a valid exemp­ti­on appli­es. Tho­se par­ti­ci­pa­ting in unre­gis­tered offe­rings also may be lia­ble for vio­la­ti­ons of the secu­ri­ties laws. Addi­tio­nal­ly, secu­ri­ties exch­an­ges pro­vi­ding for tra­ding in the­se secu­ri­ties must regis­ter unless they are exempt. The pur­po­se of the regis­tra­ti­on pro­vi­si­ons of the fede­ral secu­ri­ties laws is to ensu­re that inves­tors are sold invest­ments that include all the pro­per dis­clo­sures and are sub­ject to regu­la­to­ry scru­ti­ny for inves­tors’ protection.

Wei­ter­hin heisst es:

In light of the facts and cir­cum­s­tances, the agen­cy has deci­ded not to bring char­ges in this ins­tance, or make fin­dings of vio­la­ti­ons in the Report, but rather to cau­ti­on the indus­try and mar­ket par­ti­ci­pan­ts:  the fede­ral secu­ri­ties laws app­ly to tho­se who offer and sell secu­ri­ties in the United Sta­tes, regard­less whe­ther the issuing enti­ty is a tra­di­tio­nal com­pa­ny or a decen­tra­li­zed auto­no­mous orga­niza­ti­on, regard­less whe­ther tho­se secu­ri­ties are purcha­sed using U.S. dol­lars or vir­tu­al cur­ren­ci­es, and regard­less whe­ther they are dis­tri­bu­ted in cer­ti­fi­ca­ted form or through dis­tri­bu­ted led­ger technology.

Leicht ent­setzt auf die Ent­schei­dung reagiert Jere­my Epstein in SEC to block­chain com­mu­ni­ty: You are now regu­la­ted.

Epstein moniert, dass nun ande­re frei­zü­gi­ge­re Län­der, wie die Schweiz, von der Bewer­tung der SEC pro­fi­tie­ren wer­den. Da wäre ich nicht so sicher. Soll­ten die Grün­de, wel­che die SEC anführt, stich­hal­tig sein, dann ist es nur schwer vor­stell­bar, dass ande­re Län­der sich die­ser Bewer­tung über kurz oder lang nicht anschlie­ßen werden.