TechFlow reports that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a statement on March 20 stating that mining activities using the Proof-of-Work (PoW) mechanism do not constitute securities offerings under the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
The statement noted that both individual mining and pool mining fail to meet the key element of the "Howey Test"—"a reasonable expectation of profits derived from the entrepreneurial or managerial efforts of others."
The SEC stated that miners receive rewards for contributing computational resources to secure the network, validate transactions, and add new blocks—payments that represent compensation for services provided to the network, rather than profits derived from the efforts of others. The SEC emphasized that this determination applies only to specific types of mining activities, and other transactions involving crypto assets will continue to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
