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SEC charges Kraken for operating as an unregistered securities exchange

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Re: SEC charges Kraken for operating as an unregistered securities exchange

#111

Post by bitvoid »

clarkmoody wrote: post #98
pmulard wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FDA has no place in a free market. If people trust a company which poisons their food, they should be punished for misplacing their trust. Both the scammer and the scammed deserve a share of the punishment. Life naturally punishes the scammed already and teaches them a lesson at the same time... Without the help of the FDA... How good is that?! -- I'd much rather pool our money into a commission that does this fo…

How many drugs had FDA approval that was later retracted after much harm was done?

If the FDA didn't exist, how many more harmful drugs would there be? Would those harmful drugs that had approval retracted still be out there being prescribed?

Just because the FDA is not perfect does not mean that it's a net negative.

Re: SEC charges Kraken for operating as an unregistered securities exchange

#113

Post by heavyset_go »

Loughla wrote: post #97
jongjong wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SEC has no place in a free market. If people trust a company which co-mingles funds, they should be punished for misplacing their trust. Both the scammer and the scammed deserve a share of the punishment. Life naturally punishes the scammed already and teaches them a lesson at the same time... Without the help of the SEC... How good is that?! If my startup fails because I hired the wrong people, I take the full b…

If the company says it doesn't co-mingle funds, but does, why should I be punished as a retail investor?

You're just acceptable collateral damage to someone who is ideologically opposed to regulations. At best, your legal recourse is to "sue" an entity that has already been dissolved and bankrupted.

Re: SEC charges Kraken for operating as an unregistered securities exchange

#114

Post by Quindecillion »

ChainOfFools wrote: post #109
kylebenzle wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't BTC controlled by one single very centralized group, Blockstream? I could be wrong but I thought Adam Back's Blockstream long ago hijacked the GitHub repo and took full control of that project.

Bitcoin along with most cryptocurrencies (broadly priced in it), is controlled by a small cartel of deeply entrenched miners and large wallet stakeholders who were involved early on and have constantly consolidated their positions both over infrastructural custody, that is, mining, and control of liquidity. There's a staggering amount of illegal mining that is never accounted for in the economic models used to determ…

There's a lot of problems with your post, but I'm going to focus on the one that bamboozled me the most.

> illegal mining

What exactly is "illegal mining"?

Re: SEC charges Kraken for operating as an unregistered securities exchange

#115

Post by lamontcg »

WXLCKNO wrote: post #48
kklisura wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find following more troubling: > As alleged in the complaint, Kraken commingles its customers’ money with its own, including paying operational expenses directly from accounts that hold customer cash. Didn't FTX/SBF do same?

Kraken addressed this point in their blog post replying to these allegations. They're not doing this at all.

If they're doing it, they're clearly going to say that they're not.

Re: SEC charges Kraken for operating as an unregistered securities exchange

#116

Post by ChainOfFools »

Quindecillion wrote: post #114
ChainOfFools wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin along with most cryptocurrencies (broadly priced in it), is controlled by a small cartel of deeply entrenched miners and large wallet stakeholders who were involved early on and have constantly consolidated their positions both over infrastructural custody, that is, mining, and control of liquidity. There's a staggering amount of illegal mining that is never accounted for in the economic models used to determ…

There's a lot of problems with your post, but I'm going to focus on the one that bamboozled me the most. > illegal mining What exactly is "illegal mining"?

2022: https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2455120/thousan...

2023: (much smaller scale than above but still stealing over USD $150000 a year in electricity)

https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2569745/crypto-...

This time around the authorities estimate that they've only found 1%, not 10% as they had before, of the illegal mining done in their country.

Re: SEC charges Kraken for operating as an unregistered securities exchange

#117

Post by nateabele »

bitvoid wrote: post #111
clarkmoody wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many drugs had FDA approval that was later retracted after much harm was done?

If the FDA didn't exist, how many more harmful drugs would there be? Would those harmful drugs that had approval retracted still be out there being prescribed? Just because the FDA is not perfect does not mean that it's a net negative.

That's the hypothetical half of the equation. The tangible, measurable half is how many people the FDA has killed by denying access to life-saving treatments. A number of studies[0] have been conducted on this topic.

[0] https://www.fdareview.org/issues/theory-evidence-and-example...

Re: SEC charges Kraken for operating as an unregistered securities exchange

#118

Post by pseg134 »

knlam wrote: post #106
jcranmer wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matt Levine I think put it best: if Bernie Madoff were to go to the SEC and ask them "I don't know how to run a Ponzi scheme legally, can you please update the guidelines to make it easier", of course the SEC is going to refuse. And the situation with cryptocurrencies seems to be broadly similar: there's actually a pretty clear answer as to what would need to be done to be fully above-the-board and legal, it's just n…

At least in the case of Bernie Madoff, the SEC can say "no, it is illegal to run a ponzi scheme and in this case it should say what law the exchange broke to make it valid

They offered an unregistered security for sale. That is against the law.

Re: SEC charges Kraken for operating as an unregistered securities exchange

#119

Post by Geee »

kylebenzle wrote: post #53
SeanAnderson wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I had started the conversation about BTC not BCH. Personally, I feel that BCH has more of a team associated with it than BTC. That said, none of what we're talking about addresses the fact that, in 2018, Gensler said, quote, "Bitcoin. Ether. Litecoin. Bitcoin Cash. Why did I name those four? They’re not securities." Since then, things have changed, and now Gensler only highlights BTC as not a security. If the i…

Isn't BTC controlled by one single very centralized group, Blockstream? I could be wrong but I thought Adam Back's Blockstream long ago hijacked the GitHub repo and took full control of that project.

No one controls Bitcoin, because it's a protocol. Bitcoin Core is the reference implementation, but there are others, and anyone can create new implementations if they wish. Also, the Bitcoin Core maintainers can't just change something on a whim, because users would then switch to another fork. Maintainers (or miners or other groups) can't force their changes on users, because everyone can decide on their own which version of the software they want to use.

The protocol development happens through BIPs (Bitcoin improvement proposals): https://github.com/bitcoin/bips

BIPs are discussed for years, before (and if) they are implemented, and basically everyone needs to agree on them, because no one wants to fork the blockchain, which could be devastating.

Re: SEC charges Kraken for operating as an unregistered securities exchange

#120

Post by Uptrenda »

jcranmer wrote: post #73
ascendantlogic wrote: post #65

I feel like this won't end up going well for the SEC. This whole methodology of telling exchanges "I don't know, you figure it out" when they ask for clarity and then turning around and suing them for not figuring it out is extremely shaky legal ground.

Matt Levine I think put it best: if Bernie Madoff were to go to the SEC and ask them "I don't know how to run a Ponzi scheme legally, can you please update the guidelines to make it easier", of course the SEC is going to refuse. And the situation with cryptocurrencies seems to be broadly similar: there's actually a pretty clear answer as to what would need to be done to be fully above-the-board and legal, it's just n…

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