Sometime in mid-October I learned that the SEC was accepting public comments on the proposed rule changes as per SR-NASDAQ-2023-016. The original submission from Blackrock was made on June 15, 2023 but an extension was granted for public comments till October 25th and I snuck in just under the wire.
All of the public comments can be found here, and I’d like to thank everyone who contributed. The submission by BetterMarkets.org if quite good, so if you’re a wierdo who likes this kind of stuff then make sure to read it.
I felt it was important to push back on the propaganda being spread to regulators. As Stephen Diehl pointed out in a recent interview on my podcast IORADIO, if the people who understand this stuff don’t stand up and oppose disinformation, then our institutions stand a good chance of being captured.
I objected to the rule changes on three main points:
(a) That the submission used misleading information and language
(b) That Bitcoin is not a commodity, nor is it an asset
(c) That Bitcoin is a form of investment fraud
Of course its likely that no one read the submission, but if they did, I hope they liked my proposal for how they should determine if something is an investment fraud. I proposed the Madoff test, which is quite similar to the Howey test but the last criteria differs.
Madoff Test:
- An investment of money
- In a common enterprise
- With the expectation of profit
- To be derived from the funds contributed by new investors
It turns out that Bitcoin meets all four of the requirements! I wonder if SEC Chair Gensler will adopt the Madoff Test in the future.
Below you will find my verbatim submission to the SEC. Enjoy!