There is an article written back in March of 2016 titled, How to Launch a Crypto Currency Legally while Raising Funds which appears to be written by Daniel Larimer, (i.e. 
A couple FinCEN documents that Dan references are https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default/files/shared/FIN-2014-R012.pdf and https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default/files/shared/FIN-2013-G001.pdf, and a quick summary of the documents is that there are exchangers, administrators, and users of virtual currencies, and the goal of any cryptocurrency developer is to be considered a "user" of the virtual currency because regulations would make your cryptocurrency impracticable if FinCEN considers you an "exchanger" or "administrator" of a virtual currency. Note: FinCEN stands for Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
What strikes me as interesting while reading these FinCEN documents is that the culture of being open source, decentralized, and announcing a virtual currency before mining seems to have a lot to do with the legal landscape that crypto currency developers are operating in. For example, I could develop my own virtual currency on a centralized, dedicated server running php and mysql that would be blazing fast and would cost almost nothing to run, but if I did this then I would be considered an "administrator" of a virtual currency which means that I would be subject to all the overly burdensome regulations that apply to administrators of virtual currencies.
Ideally it would be nice if all types of currencies could compete with each other without laws and regulations getting in the way. I think I (as well as other people) could build really neat centralized virtual currencies that could outperform bitcoin by orders of magnitude in terms of speed and user experience, and in situations where high levels of security, trust, and anonymity aren't overly important, then my centralized virtual currency might be a preferred choice. However, unfortunately, governments won't allow these other types of virtual currencies to compete, and I kind of view it as a type of government granted monopoly given to decentralized virtual currencies like bitcoin.