It appears that whether the users think it is an investment or not, has nothing to do with the classification as a security.
No.
One and only one link on this thread. I'm getting back to work now.
"According to the Howey test, an instrument is only a security if it involves an investment of money or other tangible or definable consideration used in a
common enterprise with a reasonable
expectation of profits to
be derived primarily from the entrepreneurial or managerial efforts of others."
http://www.legalandcompliance.com/securities-resources/securities-glossary/howey-test-to-determine-if-an-investment-is-a-security/That is why crowdfunding a movie does not violate securities law, or even a toy, watch, etc. where you get the item as a reward. Coins not so much.
smooth, law is based on words. We must read words with comprehension, not just ignoring parts of the sentences we do not like.
The red bolded phrases are the salient part of the test I am referring to. To be an investment security requires an ongoing "
common enterprise" where the buyer "
reasonably expects profits" due to the ongoing "
entrepreneurial or managerial efforts of others" in that enterprise. When the developer sells some software and tokens encoded in a genesis block of the protocol of that software, there is no
common enterprise. The users take that and decide whether to make it a common enterprise. For example, they could throw away the genesis block if they wanted to and were able to organize themselves to do so.
It can be argued thus that Bitcoin is an investment security. The core developers exert a lot of managerial control in the common enterprise that the users do not. They've even formed a Blockstream corporation around their operation.