For years, crypto investors have operated in a regulatory fog. Is your favorite coin a security? A commodity? Something else entirely?

The answer mattered enormously. It determined which regulators had jurisdiction over your favorite cryptocurrencies, what rules applied, and whether the project behind your tokens might face an enforcement action.

The times, they are a-changin’. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued a joint guidance document this week that clears up a lot of the regulatory fog.

The guidance title is straight to the point, in that adorably dry way of professional bureaucrats: “Application of the Federal Securities Laws to Certain Types of Crypto Assets and…