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

SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

sec.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 142 posts

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#21

Post by root_axis »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #14
root_axis wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't envision a future where they are anything but a scam. The tokens have no legal or economic connection to any business activity produced by the token creators so I don't see why any ICO token would be worth any more than any other besides hype.

They seem like Kickstarter bred with stocks - mostly an unenforceable promise of future products/services/magic to the users who buy the initial coins. An employee where I work recommended we do our own ICO, but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what it was that the coins would eventually be exchanged for. Maybe I'm just too dumb - he's objectively smarter than me, I'll freely admit - but it seemed not too di…

Yeah, being very smart doesn't seem to be an effective inoculant against blockchain hysteria. Then again, the ICO scammers are making millions and I'm not, so, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#22

Post by smokeyj »

root_axis wrote: post #11
KasianFranks wrote: post #10

This is really good to see. Separating the scam ICOs from the non-scam ICOs is only going to become more important in the future.

I can't envision a future where they are anything but a scam. The tokens have no legal or economic connection to any business activity produced by the token creators so I don't see why any ICO token would be worth any more than any other besides hype.

What excites me most about ICOs is how accessible it makes organization. To get a group of 10 people to work on a common goal and share the reward is surprisingly difficult. The overhead of the legal and accounting costs makes it a non-start for anything worth less than a multi-million dollar venture. But what about all the opportunities below that? Local shops, gardens, and service based businesses?

I'd like to see a set of standardized smart contracts, where if you adhere to the protocols of the contract, investors can enjoy the benefit of certain expectations. Such as, the cap table being accurate. The distribution of shares will be known, along with the voting power of all members. The flow of income and payout of dividends will also be transparent.

If complying with regulation is cheap and accessible more people will do it. I'd like the SEC to open a github account and create regulatory compliant smart contracts. Let's welcome everyone into the business class and encourage local investments in our communities. That's my vision for ICOs at least.

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#24

Post by tlrobinson »

tekromancr wrote: post #16
root_axis wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't envision a future where they are anything but a scam. The tokens have no legal or economic connection to any business activity produced by the token creators so I don't see why any ICO token would be worth any more than any other besides hype.

Sort of. For situations where the coin represents some ambiguous "share" of the project, absolutely. However, when the tokens are used as an incentive mechanism for a fledgling decentralized network, I think it makes a bit more sense. Things like Sia or Storj or Ether or Ark where the token is there to function as a cost/reward for using/providing the service that the network provides (filestorage, smart contracts, d…

I think even in most of those cases it would make more sense to use Bitcoin or Ethereum, which users are more likely to already have, and will likely be less volatile.

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#25

Post by Zarath »

donquichotte wrote: post #4

> [The SEC] obtained an emergency asset freeze to halt a fast-moving Initial Coin Offering (ICO) fraud that raised up to $15 million from thousands of investors since August by falsely promising a 13-fold profit in less than a month. To me, the PlexCoin homepage [1] is indistinguishable from all the other ICO homepages I've seen. - bootstrap homepage: check - beautiful graphics with actors and coins: check - unclear…

This is indistinguishable... really? This is so obviously a scam it hurts. The first sentence doesn't even make sense, let alone have proper grammar.

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#26

Post by chroem- »

gruez wrote: post #17

if the company's in quebec, how were they able to freeze their assets? did the company have exchange accounts in US? does the SEC have some sort of agreement with the canadians?

I would also like to know more about this. Could anyone with experience in the area please explain?

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#27

Post by Flott »

donquichotte wrote: post #4

> [The SEC] obtained an emergency asset freeze to halt a fast-moving Initial Coin Offering (ICO) fraud that raised up to $15 million from thousands of investors since August by falsely promising a 13-fold profit in less than a month. To me, the PlexCoin homepage [1] is indistinguishable from all the other ICO homepages I've seen. - bootstrap homepage: check - beautiful graphics with actors and coins: check - unclear…

At first they were even using Visa logo, promising a Visa card that would use Plexcoins. They never even contacted Visa.

A redditor eventually warned Visa about this and they required Plexcorp / DL Innov / Dominic Lacroix to remove all mention of Visa.

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#28

Post by libertymcateer »

hectorr1 wrote: post #15

Good. The first step to establishing a regulatory framework is defining boundaries of acceptable behavior by shutting down egregious violations.

What about the folks who love cryptocurrency specifically because of the fact it is unregulated? Are we not doing that anymore?

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#29

Post by berberous »

IMTDb wrote: post #20
KasianFranks wrote: post #10

This is really good to see. Separating the scam ICOs from the non-scam ICOs is only going to become more important in the future.

Which ICO was not a scam ?

Scam =/= terrible investment idea. Tezos and Filecoin, for example, are not scams. They are serious projects that are attempting to bring something useful to the market. That said, they raised wayyy too much money, and may end up being terrible investments that don't return any profit, but that applies to many startups as well.

PlexCoin offered guaranteed 1300% returns or your money back. That is a pure scam.

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#30

Post by nikolay »

All ICOs should be banned! When you see all these scams around, you start appreciating regulation, law, and order more! I am not sure why so many engineers today are into anarchy when it's entirely against the basis of computer science and engineering in general! I get the idea about the distributed systems for higher resilience, but going against the merits of states and governments is just childish!
Post reply on HN