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China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

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Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#171

Post by logicallee »

What about all those legitimate startups that raised money from ICO's???

Here on Hacker News we had a staunch defender of ICO's, who was saying "ICO's of some form are unquestionably the future of raising capital for most tech companies up to a certain size".

In response to that wide claim, I asked the following question which I'll quote part of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15121111

>May I ask what the largest/most successful "traditional" tech company that used an ICO is? By "traditional" I mean that their tech has nothing to do with blockchains and they could have also just raised money on angellist, and today are just a normal tech company shipping some kind of a product, like a hoverboard.

Here was their response which I'll quote: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15121451

>This is early days, very early days. Give it a few years, and people won't bat an eye at raising capital via the blockchain. It's just more efficient and easier. I mean, if you like having to travel around, having tons of meetings and discussions, hoping your lead investor doesn't pull out and fuck up the whole round, by all means keep supporting the current system. It just is going to change, massively, in the coming years. There will be some sort of place for traditional capital but blockchain capital raising will hit every industry.

If you think about it, that response to my question really says it all.

(Upon my folowup, they did name two software companies.)

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#172

Post by Nursie »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #165
Nursie wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you dispute that a lot of people are idiots? Would you dispute that even (otherwise) smart people can and do get taken in by dodgy financial schemes? Regulations are there for good reasons...

I would dispute that either of these justify banning people from making decisions for themselves on what to spend/invest their money in. If people really don't want the responsibility of freedom we can bring back indentured servitude, where people sign away their rights.

Ah, so protecting people from scams is now banning people from their own decisions?

I suppose we should drop all laws about fraud really, why should we ban people from freely transacting with "microsoft" support services who just want to help them with their computer?

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#174

Post by rothbardrand »

justonepost wrote: post #163
rothbardrand wrote: post #147

Why don't rich people need protection? Here's the answer: this is their protection. It reduces their competition. Seriously, these securities rules keep people like me from investing in AirBnB and Uber (two that I caught very early and wanted into)... but we can all go to Vegas and lose $100k in a single weekend. But putting $10k into Uber's seed round is somehow a crime I need to be protected from? Truth of the matt…

The thing is these are a huge haven for money laundering which is probably the best explanation for the amounts raised.

Money laundering is what you are doing when you move money from your savings to your checking to pay your visa bill. Literally, under the legal definition, that's "laundering". It's a thought crime.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#175

Post by simias »

namelost wrote: post #58
simias wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many of the Bitcoin fans[1] are also in favor of the gold standard. They don't want the government to be able to "print money". Actually I just noticed that the Wikipedia page on the gold standard has a section about bitcoin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard#Gold_standard_an... [1] At those who bother to think about the long term economic consequences of Bitcoin instead of just trying to Get Rich Q…

I'd disagree. What Bitcoin fans want is "digital gold", not the gold standard. The gold standard is a system where paper currency is backed by a guarantee that it is redeemable for a given amount of gold. Of course the govt can rescind this promise at any time. What Bitcoin fans want is something more akin to gold coins, where the value of the currency is independent of any state.

Fair enough, but effectively it has the same economical implications as the gold standard, except maybe made stronger by the fact that the government can't do anything at all to change the way it works, doesn't it?

I think the pro and cons of the gold standard (as listed by Wikipedia) seem to apply fairly well to the Bitcoin economy.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#176

Post by igorgue »

octaveguin wrote: post #160
rothbardrand wrote: post #147

Why don't rich people need protection? Here's the answer: this is their protection. It reduces their competition. Seriously, these securities rules keep people like me from investing in AirBnB and Uber (two that I caught very early and wanted into)... but we can all go to Vegas and lose $100k in a single weekend. But putting $10k into Uber's seed round is somehow a crime I need to be protected from? Truth of the matt…

The law you're referring to is more about marketing investments. You're still free to give your friend 10k for a startup. It's to prevent boiler room style organizations that quite effectively convince people without much information that an investment is sound when it's not.

    You're still free to give your friend 10k for a startup.
Uh? As a gift but not an investment on his company, that's illegal if you're not accredited.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#177

Post by CryptoPunk »

Nursie wrote: post #172
CryptoPunk wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would dispute that either of these justify banning people from making decisions for themselves on what to spend/invest their money in. If people really don't want the responsibility of freedom we can bring back indentured servitude, where people sign away their rights.

Ah, so protecting people from scams is now banning people from their own decisions? I suppose we should drop all laws about fraud really, why should we ban people from freely transacting with "microsoft" support services who just want to help them with their computer?

But banning them from participating in an entire class of financial transactions is not just protecting them from scams. There are token sales that are not scams. It's prohibiting them from entering into legitimate investments that simply don't have government approval (e.g. a securities sale that doesn't ask them for their ID, and thus doesn't meet securities regulations).

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#178

Post by Can_Not »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #127
Nursie wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My position is that there should be no social safety net provided at the taxpayer's expense. If one is going to argue that we ought to provide a safety net, and ought to limit people's right to decide how to live their own life to prevent this safety net from being unduly burdened, then I would respond that even if one were to accept that assumption, a less disruptive way of meeting this goal would be with a forced s…

> a forced saving mandate

There are not enough jobs at the bottom half of the economy for this.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#179

Post by igorgue »

tudorconstantin wrote: post #129

I assume most of the HN readers are from USA and I can't believe my eyes what I'm reading here. People cheering a government's ban on what its citizens can do with their lawfully earned money. I worked for my money, I paid huge amounts of taxes on them. Why is it ok for somebody to come and tell me what I can and can't do with them, and then telling me it's in my best interest to not be allowed to invest them.

I'm from the US and I'm not a Neocon... I don't cheer any bans.

Not all of us are like that... What's happening here is people are butthurt cause ICOs are more successful and friendly to funders, so they took a very bad deal with the traditional investment route so everything negative against ICOs they are happy.

The HN community just like Reddit is just a bunch of children.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#180

Post by CryptoPunk »

Nursie wrote: post #166
CryptoPunk wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like the idea of a safety net that depends mostly on the contributions of those who least want to be party to it. Regarding looking out for each other with bans on dangerous goods/services, I have no problem with a voluntary program that people enroll in to be looked after in this manner. We could have a state-backed coop that we voluntarily cede some of our rights to for a predetermined amount of time (e.g.…

>> I don't like the idea of a safety net that depends mostly on the contributions of those who least want to be party to it. Yet without such things we end up with millions in penury, risking starvation, because they never thought they'd be the one to hit hard times. As for the rest, yes I get that you're a libertarian. I'm not. I understand its appeal, but it's a recipe for literal social darwinism, with those who a…

Perhaps you could create a thread in an appropriate forum and we could debate the issue, because I don't agree at all that absent pillaging the rich with redistributive taxes, we'd see a worsening of poverty.

And even if we could save the poor with such acts, it seems like a very shortsighted approach that can't possibly be sustained over any significant timescale, given it depends on ignoring the will of an entire segment of the population. What kind of society could we possibly hope to create with such an adversarial approach?

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