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HoweyCoins – An educational tool to alert investors to possible fraud

howeycoins.com

51–60 of 138 posts

Re: HoweyCoins – An educational tool to alert investors to possible fraud

#51
post #38

The real question is, who are those people? They are really smirking hard. I bet they're SEC employees, the images have real first names on them (that don't match their fictitious names) which would seem to indicate they're not just stock photos. I can imagine the email to the office now. That would be the coolest thing ever... "we need volunteers, must be reasonably photogenic and capable of producing a foreboding s…

Couldn't find those stock images anywhere else. Some names are unique enough to be mistaken for someone legit. The site was announced today. The whitepaper was created on 2018-04-11 and the site was registered on 2018-03-08. So they probably spend a few months and 10k's $ on this scam project. This project only works "PR"-wise, because it is posted on social media. No unsuspecting investor is going to happen upon on…

is this a sarcastic post or not

they link to the investor's advisory...

Re: HoweyCoins – An educational tool to alert investors to possible fraud

#52

Probably named after the Howey Test ( https://consumer.findlaw.com/securities-law/what-is-the-howe... ) which is pretty clever.

> Under the Howey Test, a transaction is an investment contract if: > 1. It is an investment of money > 2. There is an expectation of profits from the investment > 3. The investment of money is in a common enterprise > 4. Any profit comes from the efforts of a promoter or third party I don't know if the crypto-currency community have a widely accepted view of how this applies to specific currencies, but I feel that "…

Most people in the crypto community know that the majority of ICOs are illegal securities offerings. And by ‘in the community’ I mean people who run funds and regularly go to industry events with other fund managers, not people subscribed to random crypto subreddits.

People in the industry generally know who is dirty and likely to get indicted.

Re: HoweyCoins – An educational tool to alert investors to possible fraud

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't find those stock images anywhere else. Some names are unique enough to be mistaken for someone legit. The site was announced today. The whitepaper was created on 2018-04-11 and the site was registered on 2018-03-08. So they probably spend a few months and 10k's $ on this scam project. This project only works "PR"-wise, because it is posted on social media. No unsuspecting investor is going to happen upon on…

is this a sarcastic post or not they link to the investor's advisory...

That's like putting up a flyer about the danger of knives in a juvenile detention center, paid for with tax money, under the hopelessly naive banner of "re-educating problem youth".

Re: HoweyCoins – An educational tool to alert investors to possible fraud

#54
I just saw and clicked an ad for this ICO and it looks just like Howey Coin's site - https://icerockmining.io/en.html (I don't know whether this is a scam or not, i don't recommend investing or avoiding it, I just wanted to point out how similar the website looks to the howeycoins website! DYOR) (Being overly neutral for its own sake here, but it seems very questionable)

Re: HoweyCoins – An educational tool to alert investors to possible fraud

#56

I really want to meet the team at the SEC who put this together. The level of trolling the ICO community is incredible. Not sure if anyone else opened the white paper, but it is acutally better than most of the ICO papers I read in general. There are gems like: > "Upon a successful ICO, the nondisclosure agreements terminate and we will be able to disclose the largest network of travel partners" > "we expect a biddin…

The title of the PDF is golden:

Microsoft Word - HoweyCoin White Paper v4

Re: HoweyCoins – An educational tool to alert investors to possible fraud

#57
post #38

The real question is, who are those people? They are really smirking hard. I bet they're SEC employees, the images have real first names on them (that don't match their fictitious names) which would seem to indicate they're not just stock photos. I can imagine the email to the office now. That would be the coolest thing ever... "we need volunteers, must be reasonably photogenic and capable of producing a foreboding s…

Couldn't find those stock images anywhere else. Some names are unique enough to be mistaken for someone legit. The site was announced today. The whitepaper was created on 2018-04-11 and the site was registered on 2018-03-08. So they probably spend a few months and 10k's $ on this scam project. This project only works "PR"-wise, because it is posted on social media. No unsuspecting investor is going to happen upon on…

ok like regardless of whether or not it educated me i had a pretty good chuckle. they're good memes brent.

Re: HoweyCoins – An educational tool to alert investors to possible fraud

#58
post #47

The SEC has missed the point entirely. Savvy investors want proof that the ICO organizer is running a scam, and that it has legs. The SEC has merely created a playbook, not a fraud deterrent. The ICO scam is a genre of investor literature. As such certain obligatory signs and conventions will be present: - the countdown (made its first big appearance with the Ethereum crowdsale) - use of the term "blockchain technolo…

I think the site is supposed to be more of a PSA for non-savvy investors rather than a fraud deterrent.
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