When Is a Digital Token a Security, and Why Does It Matter?

The fight over crypto is boiling down to an exasperatingly fine legal point: whether digital coins are securities.

● If coins are securities, they’re subject to a raft of US regulations, including ones about financial disclosures and investor protection. And so are the exchanges where people trade them.

● If you’ve dabbled in crypto, you may think of the tokens in your electronic wallet as pretty similar to the stocks in your online brokerage account. You bought those tokens hoping their price would rise. You can open an app on your phone and watch their market value go up or ...