Dash has received the top rating from the Crypto Rating Council, passing Ethereum and Zcash and equaling Bitcoin in lowest possibility of being considered a security.

We're pleased to announce that @OKCoin USA, @eToroUS and @RadarRelay have joined the Crypto Rating Council, which is also publishing 5 new asset ratings today. Learn more at https://t.co/f7mmsfoO2r and in today's announcement: https://t.co/vsb2YMsmNt — Crypto Rating Council (@CRC_Crypto) January 16, 2020

In an announcement released today, The Crypto Rating Council, billed the “leading crypto financial services firms committed to practical compliance with the U.S. securities laws”, laid out new ratings for several top assets, including Dash, evaluating their likely regulatory standing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC):

“We are also pleased to publish new asset ratings for five additional tokens: Cosmos (ATOM), Livepeer (LPT), Dash (DASH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), and Horizen (ZEN), each of which are traded, transacted or supported in some capacity as a non-security by at least one member’s U.S. business.”

The Crypto Rating Council system is graded from 1-5, from least to most likely to be classified as a security by the SEC, according to internal analysis:

“As a reminder, a score of 1 means the CRC analysis found that an asset has few or no characteristics consistent with treatment as a security while a score of 5 means the CRC’s analysis found that an asset has more characteristics strongly consistent with treatment as a security under U.S. law. The CRC’s analysis is its own and is not endorsed by developer teams, regulators, or any other third party.”

In the updated ratings list, Dash received a rating of 1, indicating it is highly unlikely to be classified as a security by the SEC and therefore become subject to more stringent regulations. This ranking puts Dash in the same category as currencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, Monero, Horizen, and the DAI stablecoin.

A strong regulatory favorability ranking for Dash outdoing Zcash and Ethereum

The Crypto Ratings Council, formed by crypto businesses committed to compliance with US securities laws, has rated Dash with the best score possible. This means the analysis found Dash has few or no characteristics consistent with treatment as a security.https://t.co/0OKUh72Sen — Dash (@Dashpay) January 16, 2020

This new ranking by the Crypto Rating Council puts Dash in a favorable position from a regulatory perspective, outdoing many other players in the space. Notably, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, and Zcash all received poorer scores than Dash, receiving a score of 2. This is likely due to Ethereum and Ethereum classic, despite being mined through proof-of-work presently, nonetheless stemming from an initial ICO funding round raised with a single party distributing initial tokens to explicit investors. Zcash, while entirely mined through proof-of-work since its inception, nonetheless initially included a “founders reward” whereby a portion of all mining revenue was redirected to the founding entity. Other major projects such as Tezos and XRP received even poorer ratings of 3.75 and 4 respectively, likely due to a significant ICO and a delegated proof-of-stake model in the case of Tezos, and the entire supply being created in advance in the case of XRP.

Dash Core Group has actively engaged with the SEC in the past in order to seek a favorable ruling and potentially an explicit no-action letter. Dash Core Group CEO Ryan Taylor believes that Dash’s legal argument against being classified as a security is very strong, and believes that recent communications and lack of action are indicators that Dash is far from being viewed as a security and being subjected to additional regulation.