According to a recent tweet by Chinese journalist and crypto blogger Colin Wu, the SEC has spread the word about a list of cryptos it believes to be securities. The list has been published by CoinGecko analytics platform.
The list includes as many as 48 digital currencies. Among them are some top 10 and top 20 digital cryptocurrencies — Binance Coin (BNB), Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL), Polygon (MATIC), Algorand (ALGO), Tron (TRX) and many others.
Bitcoin and Ethereum are not on this list. Neither is the Ripple-affiliated XRP coin.
SEC's witch hunt on altcoins
The SEC has recently been conducting quite an aggressive campaign against all cryptos but Bitcoin and Ethereum, claiming that pretty much all digital tokens are in fact unregistered securities since there are developers who sell their tokens to investors, and those investors expect profits from those digital currencies. This is similar to the principle on which shares, stocks and other securities work, according to the chair of the U.S. regulator, Gary Gensler.
The very first "victim" of the securities agency of the U.S. was Ripple Labs fintech behemoth and the XRP token it works with. The SEC accused the company, its cofounder Chris Larsen and the current chief executive Brad Garlinghouse of selling XRP as unregistered securities to both institutional and retail investors earning more than $1 billion.
This summer, as reported by U.Today, Judge Analisa Torres ruled that it is only institutional sales of XRP that can be legally called securities but not XRP sales in the secondary market.
Everything is security but Bitcoin
Gary Gensler is positive that Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that can be free from the labels of a "security." As for Ethereum, his stance here remains somewhat unclear as he recently stated that the second biggest cryptocurrency might still be a security.
Cardano's native token ADA has also been on the list of securities recently, and founder of IOG Charles Hoskinson, the company behind Cardano blockchain, has opposed that opinion several times on his Twitter page.
The aforementioned list of the SEC also includes HEX, DASH, BTT, FIL, BUSD and ATOM.