Elon Musk, Dogecoin Co-Creator Throw Jabs At SEC, Question Regulator's Position On Crypto Value

Tech billionaire Elon Musk and Dogecoin co-creator Billy Markus took a dig at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its recent statement on the value of cryptocurrency.

In a court motion filed last week against the crypto exchange platform Coinbase, the SEC stated that digital assets have no inherent value since they cannot generate profits.

"Real estate has 'inherent value,' whereas a crypto token 'will generate no profit absent an ecosystem that drives demand,'" the SEC said.

The statement of the major Wall Street regulator about cryptocurrency was not received well in the crypto world, particularly by the Dogecoin co-creator Markus, who uses the handle Shibetoshi Nakamoto on X.

In his post, Markus attached a screenshot of a news article's headline and demanded that the government should "return all the taxes y'all made me pay for receiving it, you horrific evil hypocrites."

Musk, who is currently being sued by the SEC for his purchase of the social media platform X, chimed in and questioned, "It's real if you have to pay taxes, but otherwise not real?"

To which, Markus responded, "Its realness is transitory."

The SEC's latest statement on cryptocurrency was a response to a motion filed by Coinbase asking the court to dismiss the regulator's lawsuit.

The financial regulator petitioned the judge to reject Coinbase's argument that crypto trading does not constitute an investment contract and justified its position on the matter by highlighting federal securities laws, which it said should be flexibly interpreted using the Howey Test.

The Howey Test was created by the Supreme Court to determine what qualifies as an investment contract, subjecting the asset to U.S. securities laws.

"Any suggestion that the potential utility of some of the assets somehow changes the analysis is wrong. The investment contracts in Howey involved the sale of an asset – orange groves. Other tangible assets sold as part of investment contracts include beavers, whiskey caskets, and chinchillas – assets with inherent value... Crypto assets are unlike the tangible assets sold in those cases," the SEC argued.

As of 3:45 a.m. ET on Tuesday, DOGE was trading in the red zone at $0.05915, with a 24-hour trading volume up by 131.77% at $241.45 million. This represents a 2.07% decrease in the last 24 hours and a 4.9% loss over the past seven days.

DOGE's total circulating supply stands at 141.35 billion, with its value down by 2.05% at an $8.36 billion market cap, according to the latest data from CoinMarketCap.