SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO • Hacker News Board

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#61

Post by clay_to_n » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 7:34 PM UTC

berberous wrote: post #29

IMTDb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe I'm wrong here, but doesn't investing in normal startups require being an accredited investor?

I see ICO's as marketing investment opportunities to unaccredited investors. I thought unacreddited investors in the U.S. are legally allowed to invest in public stock, and approved securities (like bonds, precious metals, etc) and only a handful of other things.

The notion of accredited investors legal requirement to invest in tech startups is that tech startups are inherently very risky, and the average person shouldn't be allowed to put their life savings behind something so risky. By this logic, it strikes me as very odd that ICO's are legal for U.S. citizens to invest in, and my guess is it's because the SEC hasn't come around to regulating them yet.

Does that sound correct, or is there reason to believe the SEC (in the long-term) will be okay with unaccredited investors investing in ICO's of tech companies? Are there other things with a similar risk profile that unaccredited investors can invest in?

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#62

Post by notfromhere » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 7:46 PM UTC

modeless wrote: post #49

People might not be so eager to dump money into these scam investments if the government hadn't strangled legal and regulated equity crowdfunding. The SEC needs to look at ways to allow people to invest in legitimate opportunities, not just shut down scams. The JOBS act has been a bust in this regard as far as I can see.

That's just trading one problem for another. We'd just see a big increase in equity crowdfunding scams instead

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#63

Post by tuxxy » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 7:57 PM UTC

nikolay wrote: post #30

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!

Banning ICOs would, quite literally, be impossible.

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#64

Post by Kalium » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 7:59 PM UTC

joering2 wrote: post #58

NelsonMinar wrote: post #52

It's worth noting the SEC describes the perpetrator as "a recidivist Quebec securities law violator". Apparently this isn't the first scam he's run.

Did not know SEC has jurisdiction over Canada, thanks.

They're not claiming it. They're noting that the person in question has a history of securities law violations.

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#65

Post by icelancer » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 8:02 PM UTC

nikolay wrote: post #30

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!

>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!

Huh? The history of computer science and engineering is rich with anarchy, individual projects, and unstructured contributions to the field. It might be one of its best examples.

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#66

Post by beachy » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 8:07 PM UTC

Zarath wrote: post #25

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.

Maybe they adopted the same strategy as those Nigerian 419 scams. The tortured grammar drives away rational punters, leaving only the patsies.

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#67

Post by verroq » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 8:07 PM UTC

resonanttoe wrote: post #9

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…

I tend to agree. Every ICO page mainly struggles with number 3. I never get what they are selling, probably because they're not selling anything other than the idea of buying in to their ICO. Let's take a (somewhat snarky and definitely superficial) look at a few of the "top gainers" & market cap from https://coinmarketcap.com/gainers-losers/ (as of Dec 2nd) Gainers: 1. Petrodollar.. Website isn't even an owned domai…

Tether is not an ICO and quite clear what it does. It is supposed to be a token that pegged to USD to facilitate the moving of USD via the blockchain instead of having to bother with the pain and fees of banks.

Its market cap rises as more USD is deposited into their banks.

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#68

Post by goialoq » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 8:14 PM UTC

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…

Seems like a 419-style thing -- it's designed to scare sophisticated investors away, and attract only rubes.

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#69

Post by cwperkins » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 8:16 PM UTC

modeless wrote: post #49

People might not be so eager to dump money into these scam investments if the government hadn't strangled legal and regulated equity crowdfunding. The SEC needs to look at ways to allow people to invest in legitimate opportunities, not just shut down scams. The JOBS act has been a bust in this regard as far as I can see.

There's pretty sound reasons why non-accredited investors can only invest in public tradable assets. Accredited investors can get into non-public companies if they earn a high enough income such that they can take that kind of volatility. For students fresh out of college that should focus on saving, it is not a great idea to throw those savings into non-public startups. It sure sounds tempting, but many times over has been shown to be the most risky asset class.

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#70

Post by draw_down » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 8:20 PM UTC

libertymcateer wrote: post #28

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?

They scream and cry for a do-over whenever something doesn’t go how they think it should. Because people want regulation even when they think they don’t.