Investing.com - Prices of the top cryptocurrencies were mixed on Thursday morning in Asia, with Bitcoin sliding a little. The crypto market cap lost around $4 billion to $172 billion.
Bitcoin reversed gains and slid 0.83% to $4,980.4 by 12:40 PM ET (04:40 AM GMT), after surging as high as $5,273.3 overnight. The coin went full steam to push past the $5,000 level overnight but then lost its momentum.
Also going downward were Ethereum, which dropped 6.94% to $161.41, and XRP, which lost 6.45% to $0.34119.
Unlike the other digital tokens, Litecoin continued to trade in the green. It surged 14.03% to $86.986. Over the past week it has soared 77.78%, becoming the biggest gainer in the crypto space.
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) made another move regarding digital assets. On Wednesday, it said the TKJ tokens by private-jet company TurnKey Jet issued during its initial coin offering (ICO) are not securities in a no-action letter.
TKJ tokens would be tied to a single U.S. dollar and redeemed for services by members in the program.
The SEC listed reasons for not putting the digital token under its watch. It said the tokens will be immediately usable and have been marketed for their utility, but not for potential profits. The regulators also said the tokens are not considered securities since TKJ transfers will be limited to TKJ wallets only and cut out from wallets external to the platform.
Crypto market watchers said this case is now a template as to when a digital asset is not a security.
In a separate move, the SEC published a framework to determine whether or not a digital asset is deemed to be an investment contract, and therefore a security.
Named “Framework for ‘Investment Contract’ Analysis of Digital Assets”, the framework is not intended to be exhaustive nor to provide formal legal advice. Instead, it can be an analytical tool that determines if the offering by operators of initial coin offerings (ICO) and token issuers should be regulated by federal securities laws.