Crypto does not stand still and is always developing and evolving which is kind of it's saving grace as it will move from being a security into a commodity over time. Not all of crypto will however and those ones will be pretty obvious to spot.
Following up on my post the other day about crypto being a security or a commodity the hope is things will start to have more clarity. Being in no mans land is not where anyone wants to be and coming out on the right side of the law is what everyone is now fighting for.
It is interesting to see what happens over the coming months or years regarding which crypto is regarded as a security or a commodity. Having a black mark against your name in the States wont shut you down necessarily worldwide, but it would surely impact the price. What may have been a security 2 years ago may no longer apply as the crypto project has slowly evolved making it more decentralized.
Decentralization Is The Key
The Hinman papers which is a speech given by the then head of the SEC is what Ripple have been trying to get released and accepted as evidence in their case against the SEC. Hinman states clearly how a security can change due to decentralization and would then not be classified as a security.A bit like a caterpillar changing into a butterfly as it metamorphosis along it's life cycle.
Hive as we all know is fine as we have no figure head or leadership and have our witnesses running the nodes which makes it a hell of a lot more decentralized than many other crypto projects. Others are clearly moving in that direction, but this will take time to achieve.
I have tried to see where the grey area is for one of my investments being COTI as the COTI team has mentioned how they are slowly becoming more centralized. I know COTI well and why I use it for this example below.
Not only those nodes that are operational, but there is another 121 back up nodes dotted around the world on a test net which will slowly be added to the main network. 3 of these Test Net nodes were added to the Main Net 2 weeks ago.
The network is most definitely decentralized, but the COTI project still has a figure head for now. The launch of the GCOTI Governance token could not have happened soon enough as this is going to help with the governance of the project. Community decisions on how the project is run is where this is all heading further down the line.
COTI is still developing as it is still rolling out its white paper which will see many new tokens being minted as outside businesses want to use the facilities on offer.
DJED is the Cardano stable coin that was developed and has no human contact as it is run purely on smart contracts. The COTI Treasury similarly is run on smart contracts once the rewards are fed into the system for distribution.
I do still see some grey areas with this project and I am certain these will be rectified within the next year or two as they move further away from a decentralized point. I don't think you can get away from not having a COTI team as they are the ones who have been developing and running out the road map. Plus they are the ones developing the Enterprise tokens which will bring more value in for the investors. Once this is all in place however it will be more turn key offering with regard to payment processing.
Personally I would like to see the COTI team to step away and be called something else, but carry on providing the support and development for the network. As it currently sits is it still very much centralized whether we like it or not and are less centralized than many other projects, but have some ways to go still. The COTI code and data is available for developers on Github to get involved if they want to build their own additions to add to the network they can.
Back to Hive with the only concern being the Hive Engine tokens as Hive being decentralized those tokens are not. Not that the SEC can touch them really as they are on a decentralized system and those tokens are not available outside. These tokens are backed by Hive as that is how you redeem the value if you sell them so maybe it is another grey area that can be ignored for now. maybe the problem is down to the individual who owns the token itself like we saw 
Whatever happens in the future this is a very important time for all crypto as these rulings are going to have some impact even if it is just in the States as we would all like to see the institutions and retail investors involved as it helps boost the overall crypto market cap.