The reason cryptocurrencies & ICOs are popular is they let anyone speculate and day trade.
Initial Coin Offerings Horrify a Former S.E.C. Regulator
31–40 of 194 posts
Re: Initial Coin Offerings Horrify a Former S.E.C. Regulator
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wallstreet has a monopoly on IPOs, they are clearly threatened by the ICO boom. Its just the internet all over again. Candlemakers wanted to ban light bulbs. Newspaper wanted to regulate online media. They all failed. So will wallstreet. Its just a matter of time, the forcing function is way to strong.
What is "wallstreet"?
Re: Initial Coin Offerings Horrify a Former S.E.C. Regulator
#33Re: Initial Coin Offerings Horrify a Former S.E.C. Regulator
#34Anyone who buys into ICOs tend to not do much research
Most ICOs look like fairly blatant fraud. We have laws to protect people from even subtler forms of fraud. The fact that they allow this stuff to continue is as amazing to me as some of the scams going on.
Re: Initial Coin Offerings Horrify a Former S.E.C. Regulator
#35>I.C.O.s represent the most pervasive, open and notorious violation of federal securities laws since the Code of Hammurabi Can someone explain this statement to me? Is he saying I.C.O.s are the most flagrant violations occurring since the Code of Hammurabi was written, or is the Code of Hammurabi itself a violation?
Re: Initial Coin Offerings Horrify a Former S.E.C. Regulator
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is allowed that horrifies you?
One that bothers me the most is automated high frequency trading. They can cause the entire market to crash because of one mistake.
HFT is mostly ultra-fast arbitrage programs, and the benefit of using them far outweighs the downsides.
Maybe the problem is not with HFT but in the industry as a whole
Re: Initial Coin Offerings Horrify a Former S.E.C. Regulator
#37The interesting unasked question here is why he seems to like FileCoin (the reference to decentralised storage markets) - what does he think that FileCoin gets right that others are getting wrong?
Grandmas and Joe smoes are not being scammed. You can only lose money from file coin if you are in the top 1% already, and therefore probably don't need the government to protect you.
Re: Initial Coin Offerings Horrify a Former S.E.C. Regulator
#38The funny thing about ICOs is that anyone in the world can invest anonymously AND GET PAID BACK anonymously even if they have no money, don't have a bank account, are a fugitive, in Iran or North Korea, are in prison, have unpaid child support obligations, have large unpaid IRS tax liabilities, or government fines and penalties or are using stolen funds. All the little knobs and levers that governments use to financi…
Re: Initial Coin Offerings Horrify a Former S.E.C. Regulator
#39>I.C.O.s represent the most pervasive, open and notorious violation of federal securities laws since the Code of Hammurabi Can someone explain this statement to me? Is he saying I.C.O.s are the most flagrant violations occurring since the Code of Hammurabi was written, or is the Code of Hammurabi itself a violation?
Re: Initial Coin Offerings Horrify a Former S.E.C. Regulator
#40What's old is new again - this is why the SEC was created if I'm not mistaken. People were losing their shirts investing in shady companies so the government stepped in to protect people from themselves. For this reason it won't be surprising at all when we start seeing some attempts to enact regulation.
Why dont we regulate everything like that. Why do we allow people to spend 2M$ on a Car or 6k$ on a bag? Why do we allow people to buy unlimited lottery tickets or gamble everything away in the casino? Those examples have cleary less benefit for society then the dumbest investment strategy. Let people invest, sure tons if people will lose their shirt but they will learn from it and stay away. Everyone else in the soc…
They also carry less risk. Few people who "lose their shirt" say "oh well, I didn't do my diligence." Instead, they blame the system. Their anger becomes political capital. Moreover, inept investment combined with leverage can decimate an economy in a way frivolous personal spending does not.
If you want to learn about why these regulations appeared, in more or less similar form, many times independently across the world, start by reading on the history of free banking, the Panic of 1907, the post World War I securities market and the debates surrounding the Securities and Exchange Acts of '33 and '34.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal nor securities advice.