SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO • Hacker News Board

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#101

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 10:46 PM UTC

wlesieutre wrote: post #5

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…

> PlexCoin is the next decentralized worldwide cryptocurrency, based on the Ethereum structure. Its mission is to broaden the possibilities of uses and to increase the number of users by simplifying the process of managing cryptocurrency to the maximum. But they're going to simplify the process of managing cryptocurrency to the maximum !

[deleted]

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#102

Post by philipwhiuk » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 10:52 PM UTC

finkin1 wrote: post #98

quirkot wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's effectively putting knowingly false information in your prospectus. I think that it is the crux, but IANAL

Right, I get that, but it seems like that statement is the only reason the SEC is halting the ICO. Seems like an incredibly idiotic statement to be making when selling a security. Would the ICO have gone off fine if they hadn't made such a ridiculous statement? I guess it could be argued without such a statement they wouldn't have raised as much money, but my guess is that they could had just hedged the statement to…

If you're making your first steps to regulate an industry you start with the low hanging fruit.

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#103

Post by jsloss » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 10:54 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #95

jsloss wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. The liquidity that ICO's bring to founding teams is a huge plus. It's going to better incentivize smart people to work on big, interesting projects. And get paid well to do so.

Wouldn't it also incentivize talent-less frauds to work on big-sounding projects? Given the huge problems with current ICOs (Outright scams, or simply terrible investments), it seems that being smart or talented are not the qualities ICO 'investors' are looking for. I think the zeitgeist is that they just want quick pump & dumps.

For now, you might be right. But parallels could be drawn to the first dot com boom, junior mining markets etc. So much of new innovation is funded by speculation and stories.

Even the current public market interest in the blockchain space, regulated as is is, is mostly driven by a good story and a hope for the future.

This is how things work, and given a longer time horizon, the market will sort it out.

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#104

Post by jsloss » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 10:59 PM UTC

nikolay wrote: post #76

tuxxy wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banning ICOs would, quite literally, be impossible.

It's impossible to ban narcotics as well, but they are still persecuted.

And look how well that works. Another great example of bad outcomes from over regulation.

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#105

Post by philipwhiuk » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 11:02 PM UTC

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?

If it's priced in USD then the SEC can act. To my knowledge, clearing any type of security with dollars as a denomination requires SEC approval. Due to the status of the dollar as the global standard currency this gives the SEC considerable power.

If you trade GBP/USD and then USD/EUR then you have to abide by SEC regulations.

If you sell PLEX/USD then you have to abide.

So anyone offering PLEX/USD has to comply with the freeze.

And if they have any accounts in dollars that will be frozen.

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#106

Post by philipwhiuk » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 11:03 PM UTC

joering2 wrote: post #57

Okay so I will play the Devils advocate here. They have good intentions and basically shrug off bad publicity and continue with their project. Then SEC step in shutting them down and bankrupting them before even charges were filled or they had their chance to defend themselves. Now moving forward months/years later they lack of funds or bad publicity made it they are forced to go down. So yeah in such scenario public…

The guy's already facing contempt of court charges in Canada. This is more preventing people running with the money.

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#107

Post by vkou » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 11:05 PM UTC

aeorgnoieang wrote: post #99

vkou wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can already make a risky investment, by just buying public stock on the public markets.

So there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to make other risky investments, right?

Public companies have strict auditing rules, and other controls that prevent insiders, or a small group of people colluding with insiders from ripping off other investors.

This is not the case with private firms, and doubly-so for ICOs.

There's risky investments, and there's walking around the bad part of town after dark, wearing a blindfold, with two wallets in each hand, hoping you'll find a winning lottery ticket on the ground.

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#108

Post by kuyan » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 11:06 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…

It looks like the site is down. Here's a mirror: https://web.archive.org/web/20171204230017/https://www.plexc...

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#109

Post by gregdoesit » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 11:32 PM UTC

Plexcoin, summarized:

>"Security is very important to us. That's why we invented a new type of encryption system based on your private virtual currency address, so it is unencyptable."

Come up with a new encryption system and tell the world it's unencryptable... I'll just leave this one hanging. Source: Plexcoin blog (https://www.plexcoin.com/blog/important-statement)

Re: SEC Emergency Action Halts PlexCoin ICO

#110

Post by conanbatt » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 11:51 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.

We need to do some serious advocacy around this issue. Hacker news is surprisingly pro-investment restriction, which I could expect from hardcore VC's, not regular folks that look at startup news every day.