SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

Post by linuxftw » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 7:55 PM UTC

miohtama wrote: post #80

nostrademons wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's often the other way around: regulation is popular among people inside the regulated industry (it keeps competitors out, while being treated as "just business as normal" by employees of the regulated industry), while being unpopular with potential new entrants on the outside. The only industries that really fight regulation are those where there's currently a mad scramble of new startups trying to gain position (…

Banks lobby against regulation that would protect the consumer, make pricing more transparent and generally hurt banks' bottom line. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/auction-2012-banks-lobby-wash... Corporate lobbying has not been that strong in EU, where SEPA wire transfers are fee and merchant card fees reasonable capped. And now as the latest PSD2 directive the banks must give you an API access to your own bank acco…

Post by greglindahl » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 7:59 PM UTC

solotronics wrote: post #139

at-fates-hands wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only money they have is from an unregistered sale of securities which was only undertaken because they HAD NO MONEY. Don't you think this would come out at trial? Sounds like the only reason they came out with an unregistered ICO was in order to generate revenue it needed to continue operating. That's a huge red flag for me if I'm an SEC investigator

I am not sure if this is a legitimate argument because you can apply the same logic to Uber and Tesla.

Post by pessimizer » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 8:02 PM UTC

xorcist wrote: post #128

nyx_ wrote: post #2

"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…

> Doesn't this throw up all the red flags of a scam ICO? Is that a good or bad thing? There was a short period of time when there was immense profits to be had from buying and quickly flipping obvious scam ICOs.

Post by rtempaccount1 » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 8:07 PM UTC

miohtama wrote: post #58

behringer wrote: post #49

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Name one

Ethereum. Also: Stellar. Or anything where money is raised for a non-profit organization. Preferably as donations. More transparent this organization the better. Non-profit nature is very good in guarding against my expectation of profit by the work of an issuer.

Post by anbop » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 8:17 PM UTC

JackFr wrote: post #104

nostrademons wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people think it, but if you're thinking it the last thing you want to do is publicize that and invite people (particularly the SEC) to ask "Why don't you want the SEC to sue you?" A number of smaller ICOs just settled with the SEC and refunded the money to investors when they got a Wells Notice. Those are all the folks who said "Oh man I don't want the SEC to sue me, I'm gonna get creamed in court." Kik is d…

> Kik is different in that they have deep pockets, strong legal counsel, and a product that's been out there for 8 years. Except they don't. The only money they have is from an unregistered sale of securities which was only undertaken because they HAD NO MONEY. Their product costs more to run than it makes, and is irrelevant to the SEC lawsuit.