Hmm, it seems like this fake ICO will compete with our fake ICO (https://initialcornoffering.com) for the same "investors." I guess we need celebrity endorsements to make the front page of HN though?
HoweyCoins – An educational tool to alert investors to possible fraud
101–110 of 138 posts
Re: HoweyCoins – An educational tool to alert investors to possible fraud
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are security token ICOs which are not utility token ICOs.
> There are security token ICOs which are not utility token ICOs. Ah so securities fraud instead of just plan vanilla fraud?
It depends on jurisdiction, but yes, as I understand unregistered security offering is illegal in US.
Re: HoweyCoins – An educational tool to alert investors to possible fraud
#103So, I think what the SEC is doing, is forcing me to actually create HoweyCoins...
Re: HoweyCoins – An educational tool to alert investors to possible fraud
#104Don't make pages like this. Just go after existing ICOs. Arrest people, prosecute people, go after people. If it's China or whatever, collaborate with China. Chinese citizens are scammed as much as US ones. Just arrest all the ICO scammers. Arrest the ERC token pumpers, arrest the exchanges.
The effort it takes to make a site like this is a tiny fraction of that involved in "going after" dozens of dodgy ICOs.
Making this site couldn't possibly have impeded them in that task in any way that isn't grossly outweighed by the public good of its educational value.
Re: HoweyCoins – An educational tool to alert investors to possible fraud
#105So if ICO frauds are so easy why aren't there more of them> The answer is, promoting an ICO is extremely difficult and expensive. The market is not that big
I'd like to hope that the reason is because most people who are smart enough to do so feel morally barred from doing so
I know I was quite tempted to make my own coin a number of times, but I couldn't really see it as anything but stealing.
Re: HoweyCoins – An educational tool to alert investors to possible fraud
#106I 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)
I'm surprised there isn't already a DIY ICO generator on GitHub.
I know I've seen one before.
iirc there was a script someone made distributed with bitcoin core source which would ask about basic variables and then bam you got a new coin ready to start mining.
With tokens on other coins it just becomes soo easy
Re: HoweyCoins – An educational tool to alert investors to possible fraud
#107This wasn't that great; no ICO accepts credit card purchases because that would imply buyer protections
Re: HoweyCoins – An educational tool to alert investors to possible fraud
#108I 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…
Unfortunately there are far too many women and people of color on that team for it to be believable.
(Stole this comment from a friend, but...worth it.)
Re: HoweyCoins – An educational tool to alert investors to possible fraud
#109I 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…
This is funny and effective to the point that it seems it should somehow be illegal
Re: HoweyCoins – An educational tool to alert investors to possible fraud
#110Now we just need one for pyramid schemes.