From Orange Groves to Orange Gold

How crypto assets are to be regulated in the United States is a contentious battleground with high stakes implications for the future of the crypto industry. However, participants in the industry contend that the current regulatory framework is ambiguous, unclear, and is not representative of the realities of how blockchains operate. This paper translates the existing regulatory guidance from the US Securities and Exchange Commission on how to classify crypto assets as securities using a set of measurable, reproducible, metric-driven assessments. We apply the Howey Test using on-chain data on several crypto assets to assess which of them exhibit characteristics of an investment security based on the SEC’s criteria. Our findings suggest that applying the current securities framework requires a holistic analysis, with on-chain data telling part of, but not the entire story.