Nivertech below lists the Howey test, which I'm going to reuse here. 1. An investment of money - You're certainly not depositing it for safekeeping when they d

Nivertech below lists the Howey test, which I'm going to reuse here. 1. An investment of money - You're certainly not depositing it for safekeeping when they don't insure you against loss, and the only thing that inspires people to deposit unsafely is an earning on their investment 2. In a common enterprise - Coinbase Loan is a common enterprise umbrella, everyone using Loan expects to get paid when they all do the same common thing 3. With the expectation of profit - Laundering the investment gains through interest earned and skimming is the novel argument being constructed here 4. To be derived from the efforts of others - If you aren't doing any work and you're getting paid, that's the effort of others, and depositing the coin doesn't count as work So I expect the SEC to win using a "money laundering" interpretation, and they'd rather not explain that to Coinbase yet. Coinbase is trying to money launder the profits of their investments through an "interest rate" for all "depositors", but that's not likely to stand up in a court of law. If they're thinking ahead far enough in political strategy terms, this product offering is bait for an eventual SEC settlement that incorporates terms that legitimize Bitcoin and destroy their competitors. I hope the SEC doesn't take the bait and just convicts them of offering an illegal/unregistered/whatever investment opportunity. It'll be interesting to see if the SEC argues that it doesn't matter whether Bitcoin is a currency for the sake of Howey, since doing this with an investment opportunity derived somehow from Beanie Babies would end up being illegal in the same way, even if the market didn't exist at all. (I am not your lawyer, internet forum posts are not legal advice, etc.)