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Fools and their crypto

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Re: Fools and their crypto

#81

Post by lmm »

Alex3917 wrote: post #27
Thriptic wrote: post #21

I will repeat myself from another ICO thread last week: you cannot have investment vehicles where commiting fraud results in no punishment. It simply doesn't work. Until someone figures out a way to even somewhat integrate ICOs into the existing legal system, this will keep happening. I have proposed one possible solution to this problem here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16208325

> Until someone figures out a way to even somewhat integrate ICOs into the existing legal system, this will keep happening. They're already integrated into the legal system. What new laws are needed?

Viewed solely from a US perspective, no new laws are needed; rather the SEC needs to enforce existing laws.

Internationally I suspect we need a better framework for handling cases where person in country A advertises securities in an organisation set up in country B to people in country C, via an organisation that operates in country D.

Re: Fools and their crypto

#82

Post by lmm »

simias wrote: post #78
KasianFranks wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's early days. Think Netscape.

Name one use case for cryptocurrencies where they work better than existing technologies and that does not involve buying illegal stuff online. Seriously, I must be writing a comment like this one at least two times a week lately on HN. I keep hearing "blockchain technology is here to stay, think of the possibilities!" and I say that it's already showing its limitations and people are scrambling to find real world us…

Be fair. They're also useful for evading capital controls.

Re: Fools and their crypto

#83

Post by bertil »

Alex3917 wrote: post #27
Thriptic wrote: post #21

I will repeat myself from another ICO thread last week: you cannot have investment vehicles where commiting fraud results in no punishment. It simply doesn't work. Until someone figures out a way to even somewhat integrate ICOs into the existing legal system, this will keep happening. I have proposed one possible solution to this problem here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16208325

> Until someone figures out a way to even somewhat integrate ICOs into the existing legal system, this will keep happening. They're already integrated into the legal system. What new laws are needed?

I’ve noticed two things around fraudulent ICOs:

- the actual identity of the people behind them is not known; they are often pretending to be developers with Eastern Europe;

- they are presumably outside of a jurisdiction that their victims would be familiar with.

This probably means that a simple fix could be to demand to verify and publish the identity of the people behind such projects. Whether a shell corporation based in the US could raise money without clarifying who actually owns them and whether that structure allows enforcing fraud is a more nuanced question that I cannot answer. But I can answer this: new laws are probably not the solution. Extradition treaties might help but are unlikely.

Re: Fools and their crypto

#84

Post by CPLX »

ncallaway wrote: post #60
richardknop wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so early. People have been developing apps on top of Bitcoin Blockchain for years now. Ethereum has been almost 2 and half years ago. I am not expecting any unicorns like Google/Facebook but at least couple of dapps with actual customers (e.g. not couple hundred crypto fanatics that sign up to every dapp just to pump the price) that are growing revenue and customer base and seem like a legitimate business. I…

Think back to when people had been building websites for 2 years on the internet. It's still early days. 2 years feels like a long time, but it's not that long.

I was there, it was great. Suddenly I could access tons of information, save hundreds of dollars by sending emails instead of long distance calling, look up airline schedules, download lists of jokes, find local singles looking to mingle, browse mail order catalogs, read recipes, or order books from a small Seattle company with a huge selection.

The personal real-world benefits of the www were real and obvious and constantly improving. What has the blockchain actually done for people on a daily basis?

Re: Fools and their crypto

#85

Post by viridian »

cromwellian wrote: post #64

Every few decades, libertarians need to be reminded why regulations exist. Time passes, and people forget why the SEC, FTC, FDA, FDIC, OSHA, child labor laws, et al were even created. Cryptocurrencies created a completely anarchic monetary system, which people have used to layer investment systems on top of. Naturally, low hanging fruit scams and cons have arisen, and some form of governing structure will eventually…

I'm a registered Libertarian (lol) who isn't against reigning in ICOs. My chief concern is regulation creep from problems that do exist, to problems that may exist in the future, but aren't really a current concern. I find targeting the latter gives a government a whole lot of elbow room to extract wealth, via things like trade license fees, ICO officiation fees, a requirement that a coin some some property that creates a weak binding with a given fiat currency, etc.

It is worth noting though, that ICOs are primarily a problem because there are a lot of hungry investors looking to 100x their returns, and don't have the tech background required to dissect a whitepaper. Protecting the gullible and uninformed from the manipulative is one of hardest tasks of any society, and the fight is never ending.

Re: Fools and their crypto

#86

Post by skywhopper »

apatters wrote: post #75
cromwellian wrote: post #64

Every few decades, libertarians need to be reminded why regulations exist. Time passes, and people forget why the SEC, FTC, FDA, FDIC, OSHA, child labor laws, et al were even created. Cryptocurrencies created a completely anarchic monetary system, which people have used to layer investment systems on top of. Naturally, low hanging fruit scams and cons have arisen, and some form of governing structure will eventually…

The notion that cryptocurrencies would displace fiat in our lifetimes was always a red herring. This is the real impact they will have in the long run: the technology will greatly expand the set of people and organizations who can issue a currency. Fiat will have a lot of competition that it didn't have before. Competition is bad for incumbents, but good for the rest of us. So the libertarian dream will probably stil…

Competition isn’t an inevitable good. While it’s a very powerful tool in certain markets, in others it carries more risk than benefits. Currency is not really a realm that is lacking in competition anyway. The main competitive drive in the cryptocurrency world appears to be tax and banking law evasion, and now scamming naive investors. Harder to do those things with Euros and Rupees.

Re: Fools and their crypto

#88

Post by viridian »

simias wrote: post #78
KasianFranks wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's early days. Think Netscape.

Name one use case for cryptocurrencies where they work better than existing technologies and that does not involve buying illegal stuff online. Seriously, I must be writing a comment like this one at least two times a week lately on HN. I keep hearing "blockchain technology is here to stay, think of the possibilities!" and I say that it's already showing its limitations and people are scrambling to find real world us…

Honestly the best use case is actually for the very financial services industry that the crypto community thinks they are supplanting. Distributed ledger with trusted confirmations + quicker and cheaper wires is actually pretty big. It's a rock solid use case that a couple of big banks have openly said they are working on. Of course, it's almost certain that any currency they move will probably end up pegged to a fiat, so that idea doesn't give people the warm and fuzzies, to say the least.

Re: Fools and their crypto

#90

Post by AKifer »

Now the red flags are:

1- Silly idea adjuncted with the blockchain label 2- No immediate answer to the question "How this is going to make money ?" 3- A white paper without substance, just a piece of marketing paper convincing you about the scheme with lots of use case diagrams etc 4- Ratio of advisors and other fuzzy titles / technical people at 10+

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