181–190 of 282 posts
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It's very simple. The SEC will prosecute one of the big boy "exchanges" and bring that company to a screeching halt. All of the rest will have to meet stringent regulatory requirements in order to service American customers.
This only works for US-based exchanges though.
I'm flabbergasted by how much disinformation is infecting this threat. If you look at the list of legal actions the SEC has pursued at the bottom of the article, they are all flagrant violations of securities law and clearly unethical practices. For example, in "SEC v. Jon E. Montroll and Bitfunder", the individual in question was accepting "investments" in his exchange that were clearly securities (probably fitting…
I think the concept of accredited investor needs to go away though. Why should only the super rich be able to invest in risky ventures? Why do I see so many on the left supporting these regulations that only favour the super rich? I'm not just talking about crypto-currencies but any venture really, since the internet at least, anyone with an internet connection should be free to invest as they want. I'm personally no…
The poor can easily invest in a risky venture. Buy into an index fund.
So if some anonymous person invents cryptocurrencies, at what point are you supposed to be considered securities? If the first exchange had gone to SEC to register as a securities exchange, would the SEC not have laughed in their face? The headline itself really captures the ambiguity and uncertainty of all of this: "potentially unlawful".
The reason why many cryptocurrencies are considered securities is because there's a certain group of people promoting them as in investment. They are claiming that their cryptocurrencies will rise in value. If you study the definition of money, and what makes a good currency, there's no kind of money that rises in value merely because you own it. Money is meant to be spent or invested, not hoarded. (Adam Smith's "Wea…
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No no, what happened is the DAO imploded on its own a whole year before the SEC even looked at it. The DAO was hacked in June of 2016 , and the SEC didn't release that article until July of 2017 . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_DAO_(organization) When the SEC says: > The Commission has determined not to pursue an enforcement action in this matter based on the conduct and activities known to the Commission at this…
> When the SEC says...what they mean is: we chose not to beat a dead horse, because it's already dead The SEC charged Bernie Madoff's auditors after the scheme had been revealed [1]. In respect of the DAO, the SEC appears to be taking a "wait and see" approach. (With ICOs, on the other hand, we've seen enough.)
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Are you implying that because someone lives in an oppressive country that they have no money to transact? I really dont understand your question. Oppressive regimes tend to control money flow in/out of the country. So if you, for example, have an aunt somewhere outside that wants to send you money -> you just might not be able to receive it, or would need to give some official a slice of the pie. Bitcoin obviously ca…
Crypto is only effective in that regard if you're able to opt-in. The problem is, you eventually need to interface with the fiat currencies for your "wealth" to be useful. The first step an oppressive regime would do is to just ban exchanges. Acquiring this "wealth" of crypto would be impossible in an oppressive regime in the first place.
Lots of people do person to person transactions.
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> who have provided less than zero benefit or service to our society Was following your argument up to that point. Making such a value judgment requires, in my opinion, a lot more data and deep analysis. Cryptocurrencies have the potential of loosening the grasp of oppressive regimes over their people. And it takes those other investors for the process to function. But, the reality and therefore data is needed to jud…
Regardless, the null position which assumes the least is not "crypto currencies run by folks seeking to exit into USD provide real value" but rather "do not provide value". The claim that someone would prove, of course, would be that they provide value. So that shouldn't offend you that the null position (and the position which satisfies occams razor) is the default stated position. Instead of criticizing it, you cou…
It is trivial to prove the value, as people are using right now for this purpose.
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The reason why many cryptocurrencies are considered securities is because there's a certain group of people promoting them as in investment. They are claiming that their cryptocurrencies will rise in value. If you study the definition of money, and what makes a good currency, there's no kind of money that rises in value merely because you own it. Money is meant to be spent or invested, not hoarded. (Adam Smith's "Wea…
> The reason why many cryptocurrencies are considered securities is because there's a certain group of people promoting them as in investment If by "certain group" you mean nearly all users then you are correct.
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"money" is a representation of value that is recognised as such by a group of people. If a few people decide that a bunch of stones are now money[0] (in other words, represents value), should they be arrested? Similarly, when a group does the same not to stones but to seashells [1] or salt are they committing securities fraud? Someone decides to do the same for a few hashes on the internet and suddenly they can't? Wh…
The problem with these analogous argument about what money means fails to account for the implicit contract that we all sign as members of a society. If you buy your own island like Sir Richard Branson then by all means do what you please. Legal tender is perhaps the most important corner stone of a modern nation state, if an entrepreneur can invent their own money and subsume the one issued by a government then you…
Legal-tender laws already prevent non-government currencies from subsuming fiat. Nobody is obliged to accept Bitcoin as payment of a debt, but they are obliged to accept legal tender.
And besides that, there will always be demand for fiat at least for paying taxes.
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I see the argument that cryptos reduce the grasp of oppressive regimes on here pretty frequently but the truth is that a) the null hypothesis (no effect) has yet to be rejected with any data and b) oppressive regimes are very good at eliminating or severely restricting internet access when it suits them. A slight tangent -- you can't just take two options and say we don't have any data so we can't judge. We have a pr…
I think a better way to say it is that it helps to prevent turns of current regimes (that already have Internet infrastructure built and used) into oppressive regimes.
This is going to put a dent into the classic Bitcoin exchange business models of "claim we were hacked", "front run the customers", and "speculate with the funds on deposit".
Yup, we'll probably be stuck with only 2-4 exchanges that are able to afford the regulatory burden and then the regulators will claim a victory for "helping the little guy."