I don't know how "common enterprise" is defined, but I could imagine stackers being considered part of a common enterprise, since we get paid for contributing here.
I quickly answered you, but you have me thinking. Your specific IPO example couldn't fly, obviously, since you need to use dollars to bring an IPO. My instincts tell me territories would not be considered securities, but I can't articulate why off the top of my head. I need to do some research when I can get some time. It is an important question and I'm glad you asked it.
Right, it wouldn't fly on a regulated stock exchange in the US, cause dollars are the only unit of account supported.
But if I launched a website, registered a company, and then sold shares for BTC - that'd be a security. And it'd be a public offering too. I guess I was using "IPO" in the broadest sense of the word.
I believe the OCC, FDIC, SEC, IRS, and whatever other agencies have differing definitions and bitcoin generally gets the least favorable interpretation in each circumstance. There appears to be no consensus, so I wouldn't consider this a black and white "it's not money so we're fine" issue. If it were this clear, the SEC could pack it up and go home, no?
You're right. My initial gut reaction was premature. It would open a Pandora's box, though, for the government to try something. There are already international currency laws wherein nations respect each other's currencies. Nevertheless, the U.S. doesn't recognize bitcoin as a currency, despite El Salvador. I think an important reason is the IRS benefits from capital gains each time there's a bitcoin transaction. They don't want this challenged in court. They stand to lose a huge revenue source, and this also helps them to slow bitcoin adoption in the U.S.
No. I have no expectation of profit and if I do manage to make a profit it will be through my own efforts on top of the rails built by others. If territories are securities so is every shopify store, amazon store, app in the app store.
but the only way to profit is to provide content that users want to zap, no?yes, you wouldn't get any zaps if there aren't any users.but zapping someone is not an "effort" imo. the effort is creating the content to zap.