id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentence	flesch	summary	cache	txt
iiclr-27370	Brown, S. Isaac	The Wild West, Cryptocurrency, and Singapore: Why the United States Should Follow Singapore's Lead in Cryptocurrency Regulation	2023	33	.pdf	application/pdf	13996	652	45	Since implementing cryptocurrency regulation, Singapore has quickly attracted the attention of the cryptocurrency and financial technology world.256 Singapore has consistently been ranked highly amongst the top cryptocurrency regulators in the world.257 In fact, 43% of Singaporeans own cryptocurrency, whereas the average nation has a cryptocurrency ownership rate of only 15.4%.258 Indeed, Singaporean citizens have taken advantage of consumer-friendly crypto regulations, as is evidenced by the fact that the Singaporean cryptocurrency ownership rate is nearly three times higher than that of average nation.259 However, the interest in the Singaporean crypto market has not been confined to its citizens—cryptocurrency exchanges, too, have taken an interest in Singapore due to their regulatory scheme.260 In 2020 alone, 170 exchanges applied for MAS licensure to operate in Singapore.261 However, the City-State exercised its selective authority in electing to grant licensure to only three of these applicants.262 In doing so, Singapore shed some light on its approach to its crypto economy, which is best illustrated by a quote from Ravi Menon, the managing director of the MAS, who stated, “We don’t need 160 the-global-crypto-awareness-race-062700267.html The DAO operated as an investment fund, allowing investors to vote on investment contracts to decide how their pooled funds were to be spent, with profits apportioned among them depending on the amounts of their investments.50 In 2016, however, the DAO was hacked, resulting in approximately one-third of investor funds being stolen—effectively bankrupting the DAO and leaving its members at a loss.51 In response, the SEC released a DAO No Action Letter, declaring that digital tokens are “investment contracts” under Section 2 of the Securities Act, thus requiring issuers of tokens within the United States to comply with securities regulations, including registration requirements.52 In arriving at this conclusion, the SEC applied the Howey test, which was developed in SEC v. W.J. Howey Co.53 The Howey test defines investment contracts by posing four questions—(1) whether there is an investment of money; (2) whether there is a common enterprise; (3) whether there is a reasonable expectation of profits from an investment; and (4) whether the investment incomes result mostly from the efforts of others.54 If these questions can all be answered in the affirmative, according to the SEC, a cryptocurrency is a security or an investment contract.55 The SEC found that the DAO tokens were securities because investors in the DAO invested money into a common enterprise, holders reasonably expected profits from their investments, and said expectations were derived solely from the efforts of others because the holders of the coins did not manage the projects.56 If a cryptocurrency asset is considered a security under Howey scrutiny it is subject to regulation under Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933, thus making it illegal for said cryptocurrency to enter the stream of interstate commerce without being registered with the SEC.57 Further, cryptocurrency exchanges that 49.	cache/iiclr-27370.pdf	txt/iiclr-27370.txt