The key words being "presales" and "they are going to turn into". That's an investment.

Back in 2018, the SEC started bringing the hammer down on "initial coin offerings" to US persons. They apply the "Howey test" [1] to determine whether something is an investment. First the SEC went after the total scammers. Then they sent letters to every ICO advertising in the US, asking them why they hadn't registered with the SEC for an initial public offering. Where's that prospectus and S1 filing? Many ICO promoters frantically returned the money. The SEC continues to go after the ones that didn't, as you can see on the SEC enforcement page.[2] About one ICO per month gets heavily penalized. Some promoters go to jail. Glenn Arcaro, who was behind BitConnect, has his sentencing hearing on Friday.[3] We don't hear much about ICOs any more.

NFTs were invented mostly as an attempt to create "collectables" which were not regulated investments. Now, that's OK if you're buying something that already exists, like a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT. But if you're buying a ticket for something that doesn't exist yet, like virtual land in a virtual world that isn't actually running yet, that's an investment.

So far, the SEC hasn't hammered any NFT operators. The SEC is complaint-driven. They wait until the complaints "I lost my life savings buying land in ..." start coming in.

Probably the first promoters who get in serious trouble will be the ones who overpromised what their nonexistent virtual world would do, and delivered nothing.

[1] https://www.howeycoins.com/

[2] https://www.sec.gov/spotlight/cybersecurity-enforcement-acti...

[3] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/56-million-seized-cryptocurre...