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SEC charges Impact Theory for unregistered offering of NFTs

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Re: SEC charges Impact Theory for unregistered offering of NFTs

#51
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I'm reading here, the company misled "investors" by attaching the NFT to ownership in the company, which would be considered a security. "The order finds that Impact Theory encouraged potential investors to view the purchase of a Founder’s Key as an investment into the business, stating that investors would profit from their purchases if Impact Theory was successful in its efforts." When I purchase a baseba…

You must not be buying baseball cards in 2023. It’s gotten crazy.

Does buying a baseball card in 2023 now entail ownership in Fanatics or Panini?

If not, then it's not even remotely the same thing as what goes on with non-fungible tokens like the one here.

Re: SEC charges Impact Theory for unregistered offering of NFTs

#52
post #38
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comes back to the core problem of crypto though - I agree that transferring skins would be cool or whatever, but distributed consensus does almost nothing to accomplish that. A game developer already has to opt-in to the NFT system and then maintain indefinite support for the NFT system, so if you trust them to do that why don’t you also trust them to maintain the ownership ledger?

I guess there are a few concerns here. What if the game developer goes out of business, or dies, or accidentally drops their db? What happens if they decide they don't like one of their collectors and want to wipe their balance clean? (Of course, you could do this with NFTs as well, but you'd have to write it into the contract ahead of time). On top of that, the developer would need to build and operate their own inf…

Don’t forget - what if the game publisher is acquired by private equity?

Re: SEC charges Impact Theory for unregistered offering of NFTs

#53

The concept of NFTs stored on a distributed ledger makes sense to me especially for the shitty games that sell skins. The idea they have some sort of value and can be considered a security, doesn't really. It is no different than the current in-game marketplaces that sell/resell skins from whatever game has skins this week. At what point does a thing you buy or sell become a security? Are baseball cards a security? S…

That's exactly what we've been trying to build at Ultra.io The push back from gamers has been non-stop and intense. I don't get it. They are willing to buy digital assets which can't be resold on an open market. They are not willing to buy digital assets that can. It's kind of bonkers.

And how about the push-back from game developers who don't want to spend the extra incredible amount of work they would have to invest to enable importing digital assets from other games to unbalance and pollute their own games and cut into their revenue?

If you were an actual game developer yourself, this would be obvious to you.

>The push back from gamers has been non-stop and intense. I don't get it.

It's quite obvious why, so you should get it, but I'm afraid you never will, if your income depends on not getting it, and you prefer to ignore all the wise and precious "non-stop and intense push back from gamers" you're getting, and dispariage your reluctant potential customers as "bonkers", because you think you know better than they do when it comes to them spending their money on your NFT scams to line your pockets at their expense.

If you were an actual game player yourself, this would be obvious to you.

But if you were either, then it would be easy for you to understand the totally justified contempt that both game developers and game players have for all the crypto-bros who have invaded the game industry with their Web 3.0 bullshit, who have absolutely no idea what it's like to develop or play a game, who just want to push their NFT get-rich-quick pyramid schemes and rug pulls, and see game developers and players as suckers to be exploited.

It's been more than a year since "Line Goes Up" and Christopher Natsuume's videos came out. Please don't tell me you haven't heard of them or been able to find enough time in your busy schedule of shilling NFTs to watch them. Nobody believes what you're shilling any more. Time to stop. Please stop pretending you don't know the gig is up.

Line Goes Up – The Problem With NFTs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g

>If someone pitches you on a "great" Web3 project, ask them if it requires buying or selling crypto to do what they say it does.

Let me explain Blockchain gaming and Play-to-Earn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKzup7XDyq8

>NFTs are a pure scam. Blockchain gaming is a pyramid scheme. Play-to-Earn is not only a scam, it's deeply immoral.

Using NFTs to own ingame objects: Also pretty much a scam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IYjsWBbmKI

>In this video, I'd like to clarify and further explain: Using NFTs to own ingame objects is an unnecessarily inefficient byproduct of a larger scam.

Sources and Further Reading recommended by Folding Issues:

https://web3isgoinggreat.com/

https://tante.cc/2021/12/17/the-third-web/

https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2021/03/11/nfts-crypto-...

https://amycastor.com/2021/03/14/metakovan-the-mystery-beepl...

https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/crypto-absurd.html

https://blog.mollywhite.net/blockchains-are-not-what-they-sa...

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/11/who-goes-crypto...

https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1478017698676228099?s=20

https://davidgolumbia.medium.com/cryptocurrency-is-garbage-s...

https://marker.medium.com/fintech-is-a-scam-a-listicle-in-ei...

https://naavik.co/deep-dives/axie-infinity/#axie-decon=

https://www.gawker.com/culture/the-future-is-useless-expensi...

https://twitter.com/NFTtheft

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/nfts-weren...

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/baseless-nft-hype-hits-a-cresc...

https://www.technollama.co.uk/platform-is-law-the-cautionary...

https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2021/02/12/libra-shrugg...

https://twitter.com/Bitfinexed

Re: SEC charges Impact Theory for unregistered offering of NFTs

#54
post #33
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With baseball cards, You have an expectation that the MLB will continue to promote and develop Baseball as a top sport. You purchased an illegal security.

You'd best file an amicus brief with your analysis.

Unfortunately the defendant settled, instead of fighting in court like they should have.

Re: SEC charges Impact Theory for unregistered offering of NFTs

#55
post #28
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With baseball cards, You have an expectation that the MLB will continue to promote and develop Baseball as a top sport. You purchased an illegal security.

Do they promise you when buying them that they will gain in value if the sport does well?

There are companies that use the cards of specific players as a way of investing in that player - they better the player does, the more their cards are worth.

Re: SEC charges Impact Theory for unregistered offering of NFTs

#56

The concept of NFTs stored on a distributed ledger makes sense to me especially for the shitty games that sell skins. The idea they have some sort of value and can be considered a security, doesn't really. It is no different than the current in-game marketplaces that sell/resell skins from whatever game has skins this week. At what point does a thing you buy or sell become a security? Are baseball cards a security? S…

That's exactly what we've been trying to build at Ultra.io The push back from gamers has been non-stop and intense. I don't get it. They are willing to buy digital assets which can't be resold on an open market. They are not willing to buy digital assets that can. It's kind of bonkers.

There is push back because it's not a viable business plan and will never work with the most popular games. Games are controlled by publishers. They want to completely own the market for skins and other virtual assets. Why would they ever share their revenue with you guys? What's in it for them?

If you want to succeed with this scheme then ultimately you need to produce your own games. And those will have to be games that people actually enjoy playing, not just grinding for worthless coins.

Re: SEC charges Impact Theory for unregistered offering of NFTs

#57
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I'm reading here, the company misled "investors" by attaching the NFT to ownership in the company, which would be considered a security. "The order finds that Impact Theory encouraged potential investors to view the purchase of a Founder’s Key as an investment into the business, stating that investors would profit from their purchases if Impact Theory was successful in its efforts." When I purchase a baseba…

With baseball cards, You have an expectation that the MLB will continue to promote and develop Baseball as a top sport. You purchased an illegal security.

With baseball cards, You have an expectation that the MLB will continue to promote and develop Baseball as a top sport. You purchased an illegal security.

No, you don't. For starters, baseball cards are not sold or marketed by the MLB, the teams, or the players, and buying a card does not entail any ownership in either the MLB, the companies making the card, the store where you bought the card, the players, or the teams. They're not sold by the companies that make them as business opportunities, and in fact most cards aren't worth anything.

But every NFT tells you that you should buy their NFT because their efforts to promote the NFT as a business will lead to it increasing in value. And legally, that makes all the difference.

Re: SEC charges Impact Theory for unregistered offering of NFTs

#58
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I'm reading here, the company misled "investors" by attaching the NFT to ownership in the company, which would be considered a security. "The order finds that Impact Theory encouraged potential investors to view the purchase of a Founder’s Key as an investment into the business, stating that investors would profit from their purchases if Impact Theory was successful in its efforts." When I purchase a baseba…

With baseball cards, You have an expectation that the MLB will continue to promote and develop Baseball as a top sport. You purchased an illegal security.

Did MLB promote baseball cards saying that their profitability would lead to increased value?

Because in this case the company did exactly that.

While they didn't call them securities they marketed them as securities.

Re: SEC charges Impact Theory for unregistered offering of NFTs

#59
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they promise you when buying them that they will gain in value if the sport does well?

There are companies that use the cards of specific players as a way of investing in that player - they better the player does, the more their cards are worth.

[deleted]

Re: SEC charges Impact Theory for unregistered offering of NFTs

#60
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Federal Trade Commission is fully equipped to handle consumer fraud.

But if it's not a security, is it fraud? If I sell you a hand drawn stick figure for $100, and you buy it because it's "art", then there's no rug to pull. You bought it, and it doesn't matter to the artist whether the resale value goes up or down. If it goes down, it's still not fraud. But if I sell you a hand drawn stick figure for $100, and you buy it with the mutual expectation that it will eventually be worth mor…

>But if I sell you a hand drawn stick figure for $100, and you buy it with the mutual expectation that it will eventually be worth more because of the value of the brand/project, and the effort I put in to grow that value... isn't that a security, by definition?

This seems equivalent to buying a baseball card of a specific player with the expectation that the player will put in effort into the game and thus increase the value of the card. People buy cards of specific players on the assumption that they can buy in cheap and sell when the value of the player's brand increases.

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