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Proof-of-work coins that had a fair distribution at their launch are the most likely to avoid being labeled as securities by the U.S. SEC, according to Bitcoin OG and educator Dan Held. 

Last week, the SEC sued Binance and Coinbase, accusing them of offering a number of altcoins as  unregistered securities. As a result, many of the tokens mentioned in the lawsuit were delisted by major trading platforms which made their price tank.

According to Held, Tokens that “had fair or transparent launches”, such as Litecoin, Dogecoin and Monero, do not match the definition of a security that the SEC is following and therefore are likely to avoid the current crackdown. 

Related: SEC charges against Binance and Coinbase are terrible for DeFi

“It definitely seems like the SEC has carved that out as something that they won't be going after”, he said in an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph.

Bitcoin (BTC) headed toward a “crucial area” after the June 16 Wall Street open as a recovery from three-month lows continued.

Bitcoin reinforces rebound from multi-month lows

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD nearing $26,000 on Bitstamp.

BTC price built on an overnight rebound from its lowest levels since early March amid ongoing regulatory and macroeconomic pressures.

For Michaël van de Poppe, founder and CEO of trading firm Eight, $26,000 represented a key level for bulls to flip next.

“Long weekend is coming up with the bank holiday on Monday,” he told Twitter followers, referencing the June 16 Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in the U.S.

The Hinman documents were finally unsealed and made publicly available on June 12 after a lengthy back and forth between Ripple and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), but what exactly do they reveal?

The documents are extensive, and while they can be found in public resources like the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) or CourtListener, lawyer James Filan tweeted on June 13, compiling them into two URLs.

Speaking to Cointelegraph soon after the unsealing, pro-XRP lawyer and founder of CryptoLaw John Deaton shared his belief that “the documents themselves don’t impact the judge’s underlying analysis of whether XRP (XRP) was offered/sold by Ripple as an investment contract, or XRP’s status in the secondary markets in the United States.“

This is considered a key defense of Ripple during its legal battle with the SEC. But those keeping a close eye on the case will know that the documents were not expected to do so, despite the then SEC chair Jay Clayton referencing the speech as “the approach we take to evaluate whether a digital asset is a security,” the 2018 speech carried disclaimers that it was the personal views of the then director of corporation finance William Hinman, which “does not necessarily reflect those of the Commission.”

With the Hinman documents being such a hot topic, many other crypto lawyers have also wondered what the documents might mean for XRP and Ether (ETH).