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SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

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41–50 of 343 posts

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#41
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> scam ICO It seems like you might of repeated yourself... This is the cryptocurrency roosters coming home to roost, no?

Ethereum also had an ICO (paid in Bitcoin) and it delivered. Cosmos held an ICO and delivered. Not all ICOs are scams.

They “delivered” only because they sold wheelbarrows to the 49ers. As gold rush history will tell you, most fortunes were made by merchants not miners.

Name a non-ICO-infrastructure ICO that isn’t a scam.

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#42
post #3

While I look forward to the outcome of this, it's worth noting that the SEC has claimed that "airdrops", or simply giving away tokens to others for free, should also be considered securities, as well as "pre-mines", where you mine cryptocurrency before the public receives it. The SEC has an ever expanding view of what it should be responsible for regulating. I cannot understand how issuing a digital asset without rec…

You're giving away a security that is still considered a security. That doesn't mean it won't be regulated as a security.

First clause of the Howey Test is that there's an investment of money. Perhaps at some point the SEC lawyers will argue to a court that something can still be a security without an investment of money, but I don't think there's any particular reason to think a court will agree.

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#43

Are there legitimate uses for Kik past NSFW uses? I only ask because that is the only context in which I've ever seen Kik used. I didn't know if it was popular in other places (not the USA) for SFW purposes.

I use it as a general e-friends chat service. It doesn't require giving your address book or phone number like WhatsApp (and presumably doesn't track you like all Facebook products do). It gives you anonymity, unlike regular texting. It doesn't have terrible Microsoft-UX like Skype. It does one thing and does it well.

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#44
post #2

"The complaint further alleges that Kik marketed the Kin tokens as an investment opportunity. Kik allegedly told investors that rising demand would drive up the value of Kin, and that Kik would undertake crucial work to spur that demand, including by incorporating the tokens into its messaging app, creating a new Kin transaction service, and building a system to reward other companies that adopt Kin. At the time Kik…

>Doesn't this throw up all the red flags of a scam ICO?

AFAICT many/most ICOs operated like this. Not all, certainly but the "raise money through hype about future values, with products far off or non-existant" model appeared to be the dominant one in '17 and '18.

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#45
post #3

While I look forward to the outcome of this, it's worth noting that the SEC has claimed that "airdrops", or simply giving away tokens to others for free, should also be considered securities, as well as "pre-mines", where you mine cryptocurrency before the public receives it. The SEC has an ever expanding view of what it should be responsible for regulating. I cannot understand how issuing a digital asset without rec…

The continuous pump-and-dump activity that you see in the crypto space is a clear demonstration that they should be regulated by the SEC. Regulation is unpopular among the people inside the regulated industry, but it protects society as a whole.

It's often the other way around: regulation is popular among people inside the regulated industry (it keeps competitors out, while being treated as "just business as normal" by employees of the regulated industry), while being unpopular with potential new entrants on the outside.

The only industries that really fight regulation are those where there's currently a mad scramble of new startups trying to gain position (see eg. dot-coms in 1999 or crypto in 2019). Nurses don't fight HIPAA, bankers don't fight margin requirements, contractors don't fight building codes, brokers don't fight broker licensing, and daycares don't fight safety standards.

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#46
post #2

"The complaint further alleges that Kik marketed the Kin tokens as an investment opportunity. Kik allegedly told investors that rising demand would drive up the value of Kin, and that Kik would undertake crucial work to spur that demand, including by incorporating the tokens into its messaging app, creating a new Kin transaction service, and building a system to reward other companies that adopt Kin. At the time Kik…

> Who even bought this stuff?

My guess is that a lot of this money is dirty. There are also tax reasons, where money needs to be invested or is even expected to be lost.

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#47

>scam ICO No need to be redundant.

Not all ICOs are scams.

In some cases people have taken the time to work out a set of incentives that allows a market that previously needed to be operated by a corporate entity to be operated without central control.

Such an incentive scheme has intrinsic value equivalent to the coordinating body it replaces. An ICO for such a scheme is not necessarily a scam.

Certainly the vast majority of ICOs are scams, but not all. The vast majority of beggars sob stories are lies, but not all are. Sometimes someone really is in a tough spot and needs a couple dollars.

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#48
post #30
post #16

So what happens to Kik now? Funding-wise, I mean. The press release says that: "the company’s management predicted internally that it would run out of money in 2017. In early 2017, the company sought to pivot to a new type of business, which it financed through the sale of one trillion digital tokens." I'm guessing that they spent a decent amount of the money they raised through the ICO. If they have to give it back,…

> If they have to give it back, will they have to take on even more funding from a VC That seems remarkably optimistic. The two likely options here seem to be dissolution with heavy fines for all involved, or something even more serious than that.

How would these sort of cross border fines even work? I highly doubt Canada will extradite Kik executives.

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#49

>scam ICO No need to be redundant.

Not all ICOs are scams. In some cases people have taken the time to work out a set of incentives that allows a market that previously needed to be operated by a corporate entity to be operated without central control. Such an incentive scheme has intrinsic value equivalent to the coordinating body it replaces. An ICO for such a scheme is not necessarily a scam. Certainly the vast majority of ICOs are scams, but not a…

Name one

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#50
post #34
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Ethereum is an outlier in the sense its ICO wasn't a complete scam.

So it was a non-scam ICO in support of a platform for facilitating scam ICOs? Great.

You may not like how it's, but it's not fraudulent nor illegal. Similar to to sellers of alcohol, tobacco, or firearms operating legally.
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