Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

SEC Issues Report Concluding DAO Tokens, a Digital Asset, Were Securities

sec.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 360 posts

Re: SEC Issues Report Concluding DAO Tokens, a Digital Asset, Were Securities

#251

Post by PKop »

Jabanga wrote: post #72
vkou wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We aren't allowed to murder people either, but for some reason, most of us don't consider that to be the antithesis of liberal democracy.

The basic principle of liberal democracy is that we have an absolute right to personal autonomy unless we violate other people's equal right to the same. Making it illegal to offer a digital token for sale to other consenting adults, without approval from a central authority, is unconscionable. Before endorsing yet another law that restricts our right to engage in voluntary interactions, consider this: https://www.th…

These same people disagreeing with you would bend over backwards to decry the war on drugs for the same reasons you're articulating in this case..

Re: SEC Issues Report Concluding DAO Tokens, a Digital Asset, Were Securities

#252

Post by PKop »

tptacek wrote: post #81
oneplane wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Nobody is forcing crypto currenency on anyone. I get that registered companies might have some other deal with the govenment and with hacker organisations, but a free and open (and non-country-bound) system should really not be 'managed' by some random organisation in a random country.

Is there some way we can just replace these kinds of threads with a link to some canonical thread about why the concept of security laws is fundamentally unjust or unwise? This discussion really has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

Then go somewhere else. Why do you get to declare what is valid as discussion or isn't? If people are engaging in the discussion, obviously they value it.

Re: SEC Issues Report Concluding DAO Tokens, a Digital Asset, Were Securities

#253

Post by SolarNet »

tptacek wrote: post #113
SolarNet wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with a link to some canonical thread about why the concept of security laws is fundamentally unjust or unwise Because not everyone agrees with that position.

You're still not there yet. Replace "canonical thread about" with "link to a debate about".

I'm quoting you... you are arguing with your own words!

Re: SEC Issues Report Concluding DAO Tokens, a Digital Asset, Were Securities

#254

Post by SolarNet »

clarky07 wrote: post #181
SolarNet wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SEC exists to prevent fraud. It's about people having a choice between truthful investments. These companies are allowed to operate as they claim they are with relatively little oversight. What the SEC regulates is a company claiming they will use investment to do X and then the company does Y or keeps it for themselves. Which is also known as fraud. Like the DEA (an example of something unjust), Secret Service,…

And that's why hundreds of bankers went to jail after the financial crisis. oh wait, no, that didn't happen.

Because it was legal. Congress repealed the law that said those actions were illegal and so it wasn't...

Checks and balances and all that: elect better representatives.

Re: SEC Issues Report Concluding DAO Tokens, a Digital Asset, Were Securities

#255

Post by saalweachter »

clarky07 wrote: post #185
Asdfbla wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extreme libertarian views like yours have been rejected almost everywhere in the world. Maybe it's your opinion that allowing scammers to manipulate people is their basic right, but no one seems to share that sentiment.

Can't we simply punish the scammers, so as to warn others not to do the same? Generally speaking the regulation of the markets doesn't do all that much to protect individual investors. We just (sometimes, rarely) punish people after the fact. How many regular investors got screwed in 2008 and how many people went to jail?

"Punish criminals to prevent crime" is ultimately a fear-based strategy. For it to work, your potential criminals have to be frightened enough of the consequences of getting caught that the rewards do not outweigh the risk. It works well when the rewards are small, the probability of getting caught and punished is high, and the punishment is considered sufficiently odious.

You can begin to outline the conditions under which it breaks down: if the probability of getting caught and punished is small, if the rewards are high, or if the punishments are insufficiently threatening. Investment scams and other organized crime is a great example. The rewards are high - millions and millions of dollars. The chance of getting caught are low - a lot of what you do will appear legitimate, and a lot of what you are doing wrong rests on intent. You have to separate the self-deluded from the con men. And if you do get caught, your punishment might be relatively light (a few years in prison as a nonviolent offender), and if you are clever with how you hide the money, you might get to keep most of what you steal.

In some sense, the SEC is like cops patrolling where they are most worried about crime. You are changing the math by increasing the risk while decreasing the reward, which dissuades more criminals than ineffectually punishing a few while others prosper.

Re: SEC Issues Report Concluding DAO Tokens, a Digital Asset, Were Securities

#256

Post by memossy »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #248
mifeng wrote: post #228

If you read the actual report ( https://www.sec.gov/litigation/investreport/34-81207.pdf ), you may notice that the SEC is careful to apply securities law DAO specifically. In particular, they apply the security test: "did investors invest money with a reasonable expectation of profits derived from managerial efforts of others?" Since DAO was a wisdom-of-crowd VC fund, the answer is a clear YES. On the other hand, th…

Is it still ok to use ICOs as as glorified Patreon or Kickstarter without worrying you'll run afoul of the securities laws? As long as no one is expecting profits from the tokens they buy from you. Where it gets strange is if your tokens are picked up by an exchange. What happens if someone buys your tokens with the expectation that they can sell them to someone else? Then the price of your tokens might rise, and the…

They defined profits broadly in the scope of the release. Secondary sales have different rules.

Re: SEC Issues Report Concluding DAO Tokens, a Digital Asset, Were Securities

#257

Post by sosa2k »

rdlecler1 wrote: post #199

Ironically ether & bitcoin started dropping last night around midnight. Makes me wonder if any SEC folks were involved in insider trading. Anyone care to speculate on what this will do to ether/bitcoin values? Does this concentrate interest in the existing players or does it hurt demand and speculation therefore depressing prices?

I'm sure those that work at the SEC are under pretty tight monitoring for insider trading.

Re: SEC Issues Report Concluding DAO Tokens, a Digital Asset, Were Securities

#258

Post by stale2002 »

krschultz wrote: post #50
oneplane wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they don't. That organisation only works in the USA, they can't do anything for 'the world'. Let me clarify this: Just because the US SEC wants something doesn't make it happen on the internet. They can do things with governments and companies, and that's about it. If some random hacker in Ukraine decides to use a ETH or BTC or smart contract or create a new coin, the SEC isn't going to be able to influence that.…

Good luck building the "economy of the future" without the US banking system. There is a reason banking sanctions are the US's most powerful non-military diplomatic tool.

If you want to build an economy of the future using the banking system, you already have a much better option.

And that much better option is to just use the regular banking system.

Cryto currencies have massive costs and disadvantages, and there is no point at all to them if you take about the fundamental premise and purpose of them, which is decentralization.

Re: SEC Issues Report Concluding DAO Tokens, a Digital Asset, Were Securities

#259

Post by memossy »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #245
m1k32h07 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why isn't ETH crashing right now?

Because decentralized organizations like the DAO are only one of a multitude of different things you can implement with Ethereum.

SEC clarifying some guidelines makes it easier to codify proper token sales like the upcoming filecoin one done by coinlist.

Scam tokens were never going to be the big driver of Ethereum success, official acknowledgement of it as a valid platform was.

This goes another step in that direction, particularly as it avoids clamping down on cryptocurrencies like Ethereum or Litecoin, which the IRS has deemed as property.

Initiatives like the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance are also contributing, so the more respectable it appears, the higher the price is likely to go due to higher expected future utility value.

Re: SEC Issues Report Concluding DAO Tokens, a Digital Asset, Were Securities

#260

Post by throwaway91111 »

sosa2k wrote: post #257
rdlecler1 wrote: post #199

Ironically ether & bitcoin started dropping last night around midnight. Makes me wonder if any SEC folks were involved in insider trading. Anyone care to speculate on what this will do to ether/bitcoin values? Does this concentrate interest in the existing players or does it hurt demand and speculation therefore depressing prices?

I'm sure those that work at the SEC are under pretty tight monitoring for insider trading.

What exactly does this mean in terms of monitoring? You could cash out to another virtual currency and sit on it for however long you'd like without any trail tied to you.
Post reply on HN