It's high time people stop naivety and start thinking with their brains. Those people holding the power in SEC or have the most powerful media houses are equipped with human beings like you, they are no gods that warrant people to be taking their words as binding. The media is awash with the heresy that Bitcoin is not a cryptocurrency, so suddenly? Common!!! Simply because SEC asked Coinbase to delist all cryptocurrency in their trading list except Bitcoin prior to court a suit. Should we now say that those who put their heads together to come up with the widely accepted name called Cryptocurrency are dummies?
Well, to me, the reverse is the case, it's those who are now trying to change their name that is Dummies. Our brains should serve us right before we start running our mouths like water.
One thing that I have learnt in my time, is that people only learn when it's too late. Those who can think for themselves, like you and I, can see through the veil and of course we either quietly snicker at the bullshit or try to alert others. I've also learnt that trying to share the word yields less results than one would hope, but your post was extremely well made and I am sure this has helped some people in seeing the truth.
If anything, they should focus on the clarification of altcoins & tokens (two different things) and their regulations, and create a standard to achieve non-security altcoins and non-security tokens, in comparison to what would be classified as one. There are already distinctions out there, though it needs to be made concrete.
As for Bitcoin - we all already know what it is - Peer to Peer Decentralized Digital Cash - there is no owner, board, central power...it can't be regulated. SEC and the media will probably never say it officially or publicly of course, as it would cause not only a huge rally for BTC but would destroy the cash system. Instead, the truth of what Bitcoin is will remain mixed with propaganda, misinformation and fear to hold it back for as long as they can.
By looking at some of Satoshi's Bios and Bitcoin development on Wikipedia, I discovered that two of the little anyone could say of Satoshi is that he's a software and cryptography expert, and the article further shows that "on 31 October 2008, he published a white paper on the cryptography mailing list at metzdowd.com describing a digital cryptocurrency, titled "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System".
Satoshi used his cryptography knowledge to build a decentralized blockchain digit asset called Bitcoin, which is where the "Crypto" name came from. And for the reason that the digital asset could also serve people in many ways just like fiat currencies in payments, trading and investment, hence the remaining term "Currency."
Crypto + Currency = ? (In case critics and heretics don't know, it's Cryptocurrency, and Bitcoin is the first to fit in for the name, and the only one that has preserved the true need for that name). The rest gradually relinquishes theirs for the latter reason through more scalability and other possible projects that deviate from the purpose.
It's callous for the media to try to strip Bitcoin which is the pioneer and the most respected cryptocurrency of that famous name. I quite understand the position of the SEC, it's the media that went agog and misleading. But if at all, altcoins should be the ones relinquishing that name (cryptocurrency) for Bitcoin, not Bitcoin dropping the name for them.
Bitcoin remains cryptocurrency as far as I'm concerned and will always be, damn anything the media and SEC pass across. They can name altcoins anything they want for all I care.
Maybe they should call them cryptic coins...since they are not certain of what they are.
I agree with all of this 100%. Very well said!