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China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

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Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#111

Post by tinco »

crypt1d wrote: post #82

A lot of people seem to suggest that some kind of regulation, or even outright ban, of ICOs is necessary. Apparently in order to prevent people from loosing their money on risky investments? I don't really understand why it is appropriate for someone else to tell me how to spend my hard earned money? Isn't that what freedom of choice is about? Even if I'm being manipulated into a scam, it is still MY choice. Let peop…

They don't ban you from spending your money. They ban companies from receiving your money. Companies that are malignant and consumers should be protected from.

This is not a new concept. The same regulations apply if you start telling your friends that you're smart and that they should let you manage their money for them.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#112

Post by robotmay »

doktrin wrote: post #22
PaulMest wrote: post #9

I hold many assets in this space including ETH and NEO. There are tons of scams and money grabs with ICOs. While this announcement has been pretty brutal for me, I think it is ultimately a good thing for the industry as a whole. I think ICOs can be extremely beneficial for teams to raise money. But a lot of people buying these tokens do not understand what they're getting in return. I'd like to see it become easier t…

> I hold many assets in this space including ETH and NEO. There are tons of scams and money grabs with ICOs. Case in point, NEO is probably one of the scammiest so-called "crypto" offerings out there

How so? It has a lot of ties to industry already, good development, and plenty of evidence of delivering on their roadmap. That's already better than most crypto-currencies.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#113

Post by omarchowdhury »

Nursie wrote: post #110
omarchowdhury wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone has the knowledge to create a cryptocurrency in a weekend, in a garage, and have the foresight to operate from a friendly jurisdiction, and convinces people to buy it; then please let me know who that person is so I can invest in them. I'd love to get them out of a garage and into an office to see what they can really do.

From an HN link just under two weeks ago - http://build-a-co.in/ ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15077117 ) You can build an altcoin in basically no time, on-demand using a web frontend. How hard the shell company piece is I have no idea. It really doesn't take a lot of talent or hard work to launch a coin from your garage these days.

Right. Now convince me to buy the coins, that's the challenge.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#114

Post by proofofstake »

richardknop wrote: post #51

Does this spell trouble for Ethereum? Without ICOs (one of it's major features if not the most important one) what else will drive the price speculation? I believe prices are inflated because of ICOs. People are buying tokens counting on ICO hype to increase their value so they can flip their initial invested principal with 2x/3x/4x return. Without ICOs this speculative technique will not be possible so we will see h…

Maybe in the short term, longer term it is no trouble. ICOs are far from the main use case for Ethereum. Speculation is driven by the price not close to matching the price if/when the technology matures. If anything, most ICOs pull money from Ethereum, they don't make the price go up.

Being interested in tokens for their "features" not the price is very archaic. This also does not happen with stocks anymore: People hold for a few months/days/minutes, then sell, they don't sit on stock for many years like we used to.

My guess: China will allow ICOs after drafting up proper legislation and regulation. It would not benefit China's economy to blanket ban a new emerging technology. They just want to prevent crypto as a way to move money out of China, take a cut of the profit.

Another guess: Regulation will be good for established players (like Ethereum and 2016/2017 ICOs), but bad for speculators and newcomers. It will thus shoot past its intended goal of protecting investors: Those who like to gamble with money they can't afford to lose will find other get-rich-quick schemes unrelated to crypto. In Las Vegas you are actually sure to eventually lose all your money.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#115

Post by patrickaljord »

skummetmaelk wrote: post #97
patrickaljord wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, what's with consenting adults freely and willingly contracting with each others. I'm glad the powers that be put an end to that madness.

I'm not saying ICO's are scams, but do you think scamming should be legal?

I believe in freedom of association, I also believe that the market is driven by reputation, therefor bad actors (in this case scammers) cannot thrive (see how bad vendors get eliminated by the market on ebay or amazon without government help, just bad reputation).

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#116

Post by CryptoPunk »

Nursie wrote: post #101
CryptoPunk wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then force them to save a certain amount per month. What they do with their disposable income should be left to their discretion.

So now you are going to decide what consenting adults can do with their money, by deciding they can't invest in ICOs and other scam^H^H^H^H unregulated schemes until they have put enough away to satisfy you. I'm not sure this is qualitatively different to a ban, really.

Better to force them to save a minority of their income than start micromanaging their entire spending with laws banning this or that spending.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#117

Post by CryptoPunk »

joosters wrote: post #95
CryptoPunk wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm basing it on this: http://www.computerweekly.com/news/450400615/Digital-only-At... >The bank was the brainchild of Anthony Thomson, who set up Metro Bank in 2009, which was the first new banking organisation to open in the UK since the end of the 19th century. >In April 2016, Atom launched its banking app after regulators lifted a restriction on its authorisation.

The BoE lists all registered banks and building societies at: http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/pra/Pages/authorisations/bank... - FWIW, it includes Tesco Bank there. Perhaps Computer Weekly is not the best source of this information? Anyway, there's well over a hundred banks listed, and around forty building societies, so there's hardly a lack of competition.

It's not just ComputerWeekly. 'First new banking license issued in the UK since the 19th century' gets a lot of hits on Google. I'm pretty sure it would have been corrected if it were incorrect.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#118

Post by Nursie »

omarchowdhury wrote: post #113
Nursie wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From an HN link just under two weeks ago - http://build-a-co.in/ ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15077117 ) You can build an altcoin in basically no time, on-demand using a web frontend. How hard the shell company piece is I have no idea. It really doesn't take a lot of talent or hard work to launch a coin from your garage these days.

Right. Now convince me to buy the coins, that's the challenge.

At the moment, the convincing doesn't seem to need to be very much, particularly where ICOs are involved. Copy someone else's white paper, post in a few forums with the word ICO splashed around liberally, and Bob's your uncle.

I think that's kinda why people are welcoming this move - there's a lot of trash coins and trash ICOs with no hope of anything ever coming from them, with a relatively low input of time and effort. But because they offer trade-able tokens and some of them might take off, and at least some of them might get a hype-cycle and increase in value whether there's any underlying value or not, and it's all new, shiny, crypto-magic-money...

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#119

Post by CryptoPunk »

hohenheim wrote: post #98
CryptoPunk wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not sensible at all. It's none of anyone's business what two consenting adults do with their money. The idea of a third party dictating the range of acceptable contractual engagements is absolutely terrible and has profound negative unintended consequences, with the worst of them being licensing barriers to create rent-seeking opportunities (only one new bank created in the UK over the last 100 years).

"Two consenting adults". That is a misrepresentation of reality. You could say the same about Pyramid schemes. No one forced others to buy into it. The point is ICOs are akin to scams. And there should be a regulations around it.

You can't make a blanket characterisation of token sales like that. They're not categorically scams.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#120

Post by Nursie »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #116
Nursie wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So now you are going to decide what consenting adults can do with their money, by deciding they can't invest in ICOs and other scam^H^H^H^H unregulated schemes until they have put enough away to satisfy you. I'm not sure this is qualitatively different to a ban, really.

Better to force them to save a minority of their income than start micromanaging their entire spending with laws banning this or that spending.

I'm really not sure I see a difference, if you're going to start from the absolutist position that the state needs to butt out.

Either way, bans or forcing provision for retirement etc, you're taking the position that someone else does know best, and that they need protecting from their own spending behaviour. After that it's just a matter of degree.

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