So I believe we have some clarity.

The Republicans have a new bill. It's not stupid. It basically argues that any financial actions should be treated as financial actions whenever money enters the system. More than that, it really leans into decentralization - that holy-of-holies that the crypto community holds as more important than air and yet tends to resist at all costs.

The bill creates a definition of a decentralized network, in which a token could transition from being treated as a security to a commodity, an investment category with lower disclosure requirements.

Under the current language of the bill, which is subject to further negotiation and change, a decentralized network would be one in which no person had control for at least a year prior, no issuer or decentralized organization owned more than 20 percent of the tokens affiliated with the network, and no marketing or issuance for the project was done in the three months prior to certification as a decentralized network.

Any token issuances made within 12 months would also have to be to end users.

Private sales of tokens for capital raises would still be allowed to help raise funds for projects well before the point at which they could be reclassified as decentralized. Those private sales, which already happen, would be allowed under the same framework as private securities offerings.

The SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission, as federal markets regulators, would determine which projects qualify as decentralized. If a project became concentrated again, the SEC could take away the decentralized classification.

It sets a framework for onboarding exchanges:

If the bill as written were to become law, trading platforms for most tokens would also have a streamlined path to becoming registered as alternative trading systems with the SEC.

And it carves out stablecoins:

Payment stablecoins are exempted from securities designation, and McHenry and Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., have drafted legislation to create a comprehensive framework for that class of digital assets.

If you look at the SEC's actions against Binance, and then run it through the FT's handy-dandy comparison chart, one thing becomes painfully clear:

BIG FUNDING ROUND = SECURITY