Passing the Howey Test is really an underrated "asset" in cryptocoins.
Dash just got banned from Apple Pay for failing it.
That means Dash is "very clearly running an unregistered illegal investment security."
I wonder whether THAT is the reason. Because then they should have banned the DAO too...
The real test of Apple would be if they accepted monero and ZCASH. Then we would know that it is not the anonymity but the financial structure, as you say, that was the reason for banning DASH.
BTW, ZCASH will, even more than DASH, fall in the illegal securities trap. Unless they rendered it legal.
Apple AppStore coins to be legal in the jurisdiction where they were created. The DAO was legal in Switzerland, but Dash is illegal in the USA because it fails the Howey Test.
The DAO was created by actual, registered companies (Slock.it GMBH, Bity SA, Ethereum Foundation) which paid the Swiss lawyers/regulators needed to establish a veneer of legitimacy.
OTOH, DashHoles are still trying to decide whether or not to pay a lawyer to figure out whether or not Dash (and its HYIP Masternodes) are legal.
Proposal: Legal (September)https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/proposal-legal-sept.10457/1) Legal opinion on the treatment of masternode block rewards under the Internal Revenue Code
a. Whether they are treated similarly to mining rewards, interest, or other tax treatment
b. Tax treatment of the initial collateral “investment”
2) Liability of masternode owners for the transactions they facilitate
a. Whether masternode owners may be responsible for criminal activities connected with transactions they facilitate
b. If so, under what circumstances
c. Whether participation in “mixing” services might give rise to criminal liability
d. If so, under what circumstances
3) Liability of exchanges that support Dash transactions and guidelines on meeting existing compliance
a. Whether an exchange might be held liable for criminal activity associated with PrivateSend transactions
Given Apple's lawyers have decided Dash is illegitimate digital trash, it's no wonder
this proposal is highly controversial among the Dash cargo cult.