Now, for most people following the crypto space, Howey is an old frenemy. As you know, Howey provides the framework for determining whether certain assets are securities. Regardless of form, something is a security if it represents an investment in a common enterprise with the expectation of profit solely through the efforts of others. In practice, as interpreted by the courts and the Commission, profit need not be solely from the effort of others.[3]
Undoubtedly, digital assets can be securities if they meet the Howey test. On this point, the SEC has been very clear. In 2017, before my arrival at the SEC, the Commission issued the DAO Report, which found that—despite some confounding factors—the tokens issued by the unincorporated organization known as the DAO were indeed securities under the Howey test.[4] In early 2018, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton testified during a Senate hearing “I believe every ICO I’ve seen is a security.”[5] Later that year, Director of Corporation Finance Bill Hinman gave a now well-known speech “When Howey Met Gary (Plastics),” in which he stated “calling the transaction an initial coin offering, or ‘ICO,’ or a sale of a ‘token,’ will not take it out of the purview of the U.S. securities laws.”[6]
Private payments was Zcash’s purpose from the beginning. You seem to be in the wrong community. I agree that additional functionality would be nice and should be a goal, but to dismiss Zcash’s original purpose is a little mind-boggling. If you care about price of a privacy coin, well, Monero’s historical price performance* has generally been better than Zcash’s, so maybe join r/MoneroTrader . Note that price discussion is discouraged on r/Monero , the main community forum.
* Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance.
A little pushback and you fall apart? The Zcash community is is bigger trouble than I thought. I mean, I want Zcash to succeed, but I am worried. Given some of the other top-level posts on the forum, it seems I am not alone.
I agree, private payments was Zcash original use case. When users can easily store and use shielded ZEC on hardware wallets then this use case will be fulfilled.
In saying that it’s clear that Zcash will be much bigger than private payments, understandably this will take time though.