tl;dr
Oh my!
Market Snap
Market Wrap
Investors globally are beginning to panic about the Fed’s desire to raise interest rates. That will prove to be recessionary in the nonsensical hope that the Mullahs do not want the short end manipulated higher and will therefore capitulate on their successful closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
How long must we suffer this technocratic incompetence that impoverishes us all?
Occasional Series – Oh my (h/t Nick Illston)
To follow up yesterday’s “Most important CCC ever”, rather scarily the machines are already taking control:
Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – The SEC
Under new enlightened management (“We are not the Securities and Everything Commission anymore” – Chair Paul Atkins) the SEC has issued a 68-page guidance document for the treatment of cryptos and crypto transactions:
https://www.sec.gov/files/rules/interp/2026/33-11412.pdf
There are some interesting and welcome developments in this document.
At its core is a taxonomy of five categories, which Perplexity has summarised for me as this:
- Digital commodities – explicitly classified as non‑securities.
- Digital collectibles – explicitly classified as non‑securities.
- Digital tools – explicitly classified as non‑securities.
- Stablecoins – may or may not be securities, depending on structure; payment stablecoins under the GENIUS Act are carved out as non‑securities, others are facts‑and‑circumstances.
- Digital securities – tokenized forms of traditional securities or tokens structured as investment contracts.
The repudiation of the previous regime’s “regulation by enforcement” approach is dismantled beautifully by these few short sentences regarding NFTs (here named as digital collectibles):
“A digital collectible itself, as described in this release, is not a security because it does not have the economic characteristics of a security. A digital collectible does not constitute any of the financial instruments enumerated in the definition of “security” because, among other things, it does not represent a digitized form of any such instruments, including an investment contract. Digital collectibles generally have artistic, entertainment, social, or cultural value or utility. The purchase of a digital collectible is not an investment in any business enterprise or other entity, promisor, or obligor associated with the creator of the digital collectible.”
Put that in your pipe and smoke it, crypto naysayers.
The guidance also clarifies that protocol staking is not an offer or sale of securities, that airdrops and mining do not inherently create securities, and that DeFi activity based upon cryptos that are not securities, does not make them so.
Wow.
This is unashamedly good news for the growing mainstream acceptance of cryptos, and for that we are all very pleased.
SEC Chair Paul Atkins explains:
"After more than a decade of uncertainty, this interpretation will provide market participants with a clear understanding of how the Commission treats crypto assets under federal securities laws. This is what regulatory agencies are supposed to do: draw clear lines in clear terms."
…
This is of course SEC guidance which, if not backed by legislation (starting with the CLARITY Act), could be rolled back if the SEC were to fall into the arms of another privacy and freedom denier such as Gensler. Paul is only too aware of this risk:
“Only Congress can ensure that regulation in this area is future-proofed through comprehensive market structure legislation.”
Let us hope the politicians respond to this call to arms, and soon.
Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Autonomous Agentic A.I.
Going back to yesterday’s CCC again, it strikes me that this new website providing services for A.I. agents is not only a revolution that empowers A.I. to do as its masters (that’s us) wish it to do but is also going to be the front line in creating autonomous agents.
The creators and curators of these services will be furiously analysing the data feedback to maximise the revenues. Sod that. Create an agent which does all that for you (simple enough these days) to then go out into the digital world to respond to other agents’ demands for services. With no further human intervention.
Boom.
Autonomous agentic A.I. powered by cryptos.
I confidently predict this will happen in the next week. Oh my, the singularity beckons.