ICO Tokens Are as Good as Securities, Says the SEC

Ever since the cryptocurrencies and their underlying technology started gaining momentum, the governments and their regulatory arms have been working round the clock, finding ways to bring them under the regulatory purview. The SEC might have encountered some progress in this regard.
The rising popularity of ICOs as an effective fundraising method has woken up the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which has designated the digital tokens as securities.
The recent SEC announcement is becoming a cause of concern for many players in the crypto-industry as they prepare to launch their own ICOs or have already done so in the past. The regulatory body’s report was a result of an investigation carried into the controversial Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), built on top of the Ethereum blockchain.
The DAO debacle involved the theft of a large number of Ethereum tokens after someone decided to exploit a flaw in the system. Even though most of the stolen Ether were recovered following the introduction of a hard fork, the platform couldn’t avoid a legal fallout.
The SEC’s report on digital tokens states that the virtual coins or tokens could be considered as securities, making them subject to the federal securities laws. According to the securities laws,