But Basis felt the project would really only work if its tokens, or what Basis created to adjust the supply of its stablecoin and therefore keep its value relatively stable, wouldn’t be subject to U.S. securities laws. Regulators have been trying to assess whether to apply standard laws that govern things like stocks to digital assets like coins — and Basis said it was reading the tea leaves and predicting a crackdown. “Unfortunately, having to apply US securities regulation to the system had a serious negative impact on our ability to launch Basis,” its CEO Nader Al-Naji wrote Thursday.

https://www.recode.net/2018/12/13/18139761/basis-failure-shutdown-133-million-stablecoin-cryptocurrency