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The Securities Act prevents the offer or sale of a security for "value" -- and there is precedent that giving away free securities can still be an offer of secu

The Securities Act prevents the offer or sale of a security for "value" -- and there is precedent that giving away free securities can still be an offer of securities for "value". See this 1999 SEC press release: https://www.sec.gov/news/headlines/webstock.htm https://www.sec.gov/news/headlines/webstock.htm Whether something passes the Howey test and is deemed a security is a different matter, but you can "airdrop" a clear security (which certain cryptocurrencies certainly are), and violate Section 5 of the Securities Act notwithstanding the fact that the value to the issuer was not cash.

DennisP 7y ago
In the cases described at that link, "the investors were required to sign up with the issuers' web sites and disclose valuable personal information in order to obtain shares. Free stock recipients were also offered extra shares, in some cases, for soliciting additional investors or, in other cases, for linking their own websites to those of an issuer or purchasing services offered through an issuer." The airdropped tokens I've seen did none of those things. Someone simply created a token contract and granted initial balances based on the ETH balances of existing addresses. The new owners don't even have to know the tokens exist.