91–100 of 343 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Ethereum as infrastructure is also a dicey proposition. It works, slowly, but it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of demand for “dapps” outside ICO tokens, gambling, and the odd Ponzi scheme. The smart contract revolution at this point is complete vapor ware.
Note that Kik has expressly stated that they have really wanted this case to go to court for some time now. They strongly believe that the SEC guidance so far has been vague and non-committal to the point of becoming damaging. They believe they have a case that Kin is not a security and that the Howey Test is being mis-applied to many cryptos. By going through with the suit they hope to fast-forward more concrete gui…
Is their intention to set a precedent with a sympathetic court? I know a lot of other actions around the country are pushing the limits, hoping to get a favorable ruling and establish precedent (see: case vs. ACA being unconstitutional).
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They want to add payments to their messenger app. That's a known business model and a hot area right now - WeChat pioneered it, Line does it too, and Facebook is working on a cryptocurrency-based solution that does the same thing.
The rewards could be huge if payments via messaging apps takes off in the west. It's really too bad WhatsApp sold to Facebook of all places. We could have a privacy-oriented chat platform with a cryptocurrency "small cash" type of transaction system built on top. Combined with some informal craigslist style mini-stores, which flourished in China via Wechat. I'm sure FB/WhatsApp could do it via normal payment channels…
I feel like most services that aim to replace another one ... just want that information for their own purposes, not the customer's benefit.
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If that was the case Kik wouldn’t have spent an alleged $5M unsuccessfully trying to settle this matter. No most people don’t raise a $100M in violation of securities law...or even “testing” security laws, especially when Kik could have obtained the SECs opinion through a No Action Letter request. Why didn’t Kik avail themselves to the law and process before raising $100M from the public?
Patrick Gibbs: > First of all, you have to consider the SEC’s normal process for that sort of thing. It is very difficult and it takes a very, very, very long time for the SEC to give that kind of forward-looking advice, usually in the form of a no action letter. I mean, here we are in 2019 and they have only just recently released what I think is the very first no action letter relating to a cryptocurrency and that…
First your citing the Cooley attorney who advised the company...of course he is going to justify his own legal advice.
It’s not going to look good when the court determines Kik knew if could have sought clarification from the SEC but didnt Because the SEC no Action Letter process wasn’t practical.
Let’s also keep in mind Cooley is the Firm that developed the SAFT (security agreement for future tokens) released their SAFT whitepaper into the wild telling startups to use their SAFT legal framework to raise money with ICOs legally and these are some of the first companies the SEC targeted for enforcement actions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If that was the case Kik wouldn’t have spent an alleged $5M unsuccessfully trying to settle this matter. No most people don’t raise a $100M in violation of securities law...or even “testing” security laws, especially when Kik could have obtained the SECs opinion through a No Action Letter request. Why didn’t Kik avail themselves to the law and process before raising $100M from the public?
Patrick Gibbs: > First of all, you have to consider the SEC’s normal process for that sort of thing. It is very difficult and it takes a very, very, very long time for the SEC to give that kind of forward-looking advice, usually in the form of a no action letter. I mean, here we are in 2019 and they have only just recently released what I think is the very first no action letter relating to a cryptocurrency and that…
I empathize with what Mr. Gibbs is saying, and—if he speaks the truth—feeling, but it was Kik's choice to run a "quickly moving business" in a highly regulated arena.
People make the same arguments about security/privacy ("too much of a hassle in a quickly moving startup"), safety ("we can't afford to put two people in this test vehicle for autonomous driving") and so forth.
Kik might be right in this specific case, but in general "We're moving too quickly to deal with red tape" is not an argument.
Note that Kik has expressly stated that they have really wanted this case to go to court for some time now. They strongly believe that the SEC guidance so far has been vague and non-committal to the point of becoming damaging. They believe they have a case that Kin is not a security and that the Howey Test is being mis-applied to many cryptos. By going through with the suit they hope to fast-forward more concrete gui…
Is their intention to set a precedent with a sympathetic court? I know a lot of other actions around the country are pushing the limits, hoping to get a favorable ruling and establish precedent (see: case vs. ACA being unconstitutional).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
It does feel the only reason we had so many ICOs in the past was to escape SEC rules.
That's not the relationship. ICOs are scams, and they violate SEC rules, but there are so many because SEC had not enforced rules until recently.
"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? Doesn't this throw up all the red flags of a scam ICO? What’s amazing is they raise nearly $100M selling the token, spent $5M in legal fees and then began raising additional legal fees (over $5M to date) from the public to continue to fight the SEC and anticipation of future litigation with the SEC. They raised $100M and can’t be bothered to use that for their own legal fees...And the pub…