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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

#301

Post by Nursie »

olalonde wrote: post #286
Nursie wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it has a mandate to determine whether an investment is legal or not. Have you considered it may be impossible to fulfill because by their very nature these things cannot pass the tests to be legal? > why doesn't anyone do so instead of battling the SEC in court? Because none of them meet the bar of legality. Because they do not meet the most basic requirements of consumer protection, transparency, fair market tra…

We're in agreement here. The SEC is indirectly making crypto tokens illegal by making it impossible to comply with securities registration requirements. When the SEC says "you have to register", what they really mean is "we think crypto tokens should be illegal". > register my ponzi scheme either, should I blame them when I get shut down for running it anyway In my opinion, if the scheme was transparent and no decept…

There are laws, the SEC can’t make things illegal and to enforce the laws it has to take things to court.

The laws don’t explicitly say “cryptocurrency is illegal”, instead they are effectively duck-typed, which is good because it stops “oh but my thing is different, this time we’re using bottle-caps”.

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

#302

Post by jgilias »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #299
jgilias wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did lose against Ripple. That’s one case law precedent right there for determining what is a security. There’s also a non-negligible chance that they are going to either lose or have a dismissed case against Coinbase. Given that this case is basically a copy-paste of that one, it’s a possible outcome. There’s a reason why the lawmaking, executive, and judicial powers are separated in a democracy.

Kraken already lost against the SEC in February. Will Kraken lose again. https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-25

As far as I know they didn’t lose, they opted not to fight. This time looks like they don’t have the option not to fight.

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

#303

Post by AnthonyMouse »

oblio wrote: post #300
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The government is as broken as we let it be. How do "we" fix it? You can vote for two Senators and one Congressperson and even assuming that your vote in particular was the deciding vote and one of your choices on the ballot was someone actually inclined to do something, you now have a legislature in which the bad laws pass with a margin of 33 Senators and 174 members of Congress instead of 35 and 175. The only way…

Laws are about statistics. Statistically you can't trust even adults with stuff like gambling or smoking. Statistically they will make bad decisions that will wreck the lives of a big percentage of adults. Not a majority, but maybe 20%. Accepting that fact is hard, but it's reality.

Nobody is using statistics to pass these laws. There is no logical reason for cannabis to be illegal when alcohol isn't or for most stimulants to require a prescription when nicotine is available over the counter. They put caffeine in soft drinks and candy for crying out loud. The Federal Government of the United States directly subsidizes the production of high-fructose corn syrup.

There are two ways to deal with the fact that some people make poor decisions. The first is to teach people to make better decisions. This is obviously the correct answer, because it needs to be done anyway, because the second is insane. The second is to make all of their decisions for them.

And there is no "them" -- they're us. The people making the laws are just as human as anyone else. All you're doing is punting the decision to a different fallible entity which has less information because they're choosing in the abstract without the benefit of context. And causing errors to be universal rather than individual, resulting in systemic risk and lethal monoculture.

It's far better to have 20% of people make the wrong choice than 100%.

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

#304

Post by davidgerard »

olalonde wrote: post #284
davidgerard wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called an S-1. It turns out to involve a lot of paperwork, and there's reasons for that.

And you genuinely believe that crypto token projects could just take the time to fill out the S-1 form, but don't because it's too time consuming? I find that hard to believe. I'm tempted to believe that they do, but don't get approved, or that they can't, because some requirements are impossible to fulfill.

They're impossible to fulfill when the only advantage of crypto in practice is to evade regulation, yes.

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

#305

Post by Quindecillion »

midmagico wrote: post #291
ChainOfFools wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you read the article, as well as the quote that I put above and therefore you know that this is estimated to be only 1% of the illegal mining done in _Thailand_ alone, and this in just the past couple of years when visibility of cryptocurrency has been well established even in non-tech circles. It's been happening ever since crypto mining, especially Bitcoin, existed. Long before most anyone knew what mining was,…

this logic would apply to literally every facet of human existence if it were true; your argument has devolved into "people would make more money if they were engaged in criminality and didn't get caught, therefore everyone eventually devolves into a criminal." the papers studying the amount of black market activity in Bitcoin have consistently shown Bitcoin to be cleaner than the economies in virtually every country…

ChainOfFools is tilting at windmills.

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

#307

Post by cheriot »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #298
cheriot wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For something more recent, I'd recommend any of the books or documentaries on oxycontin sparking a more recent opium epidemic. As badly as the FDA failed, we'd be worse off if we didn't have one. There's good reasons people want more effective regulation instead of none. Part of the ban on cannabis, psychedelics, etc has been to ban research on their effects as well. I think there's some clear lines that can be drawn…

> For something more recent, I'd recommend any of the books or documentaries on oxycontin sparking a more recent opium epidemic. As badly as the FDA failed, we'd be worse off if we didn't have one. I feel like the problem we have is that we've utterly failed at informed consent. You go to the doctor for a minor surgery and come home with a prescription for opioids. You take them even if you're not in any real discomf…

We disagree on how human nature works and the ability for normal people to become educated on every topic that can harm them. People trust their doctor and don't have the medical training to know if something is riskier than they're told. Addiction is dangerous precisely because it overrides someone's ability to change their mind later.

Purdue and our system of insurance created monetary incentives for doctors to overprescribe and misled them about the side effects. Normal people died even when they followed instructions because of the cycle of withdrawal symptoms.

History has repeated waves of addictive drugs because there's alway someone with an incentive to sell them. This is not a place where market outcomes work.

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

#308

Post by ben_w »

mattdesl wrote: post #241
pjc50 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some of the stringent per-transaction KYC/AML reporting requirements in traditional financial systems are often incompatible with today’s mechanisms of distributed ledgers Yes - which makes the ledgers illegal.

Laws change as society and technology progresses. At one point it was illegal to drive a motor vehicle faster than 4mph.

The early speed limits were changed when people no longer worried about cars spooking horses.

You'd have to come up with a convincing reason why KYC/AML reporting requirements are bad to change those financial laws.

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