China's Central Bank Bans ICOs • Hacker News Board

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#211

Post by throwawaybbqed » Mon, Sep 04, 2017, 12:58 PM UTC

igorgue wrote: post #176

octaveguin wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What? I can't take 10K from my parents/friends and give them equity?

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#212

Post by Zarath » Mon, Sep 04, 2017, 1:02 PM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #192

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…

It ultimately comes down to what flavour of politics you subscribe to. The key question is whether you think that the public should be protected against the abuses of the free market, or if the free market should be a complete free-for-all. For example, Dodd-Frank solved a concrete problem, and there have been countless studies that show it it responsible for stabilizing the US economy. But ultimately, wanting to die…

It isn't the public, it's the public not in the 1%.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#213

Post by omarchowdhury » Mon, Sep 04, 2017, 1:03 PM UTC

igorgue wrote: post #179

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.

Yeah, you'd think the HN crowd would be the ones to welcome ICO with open arms.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#214

Post by anilshanbhag » Mon, Sep 04, 2017, 1:03 PM UTC

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 problem is that companies doing ICOs aren't Uber.

Peek your head into /r/ethtrader. You will find people putting their retirement savings, mortgaging houses, etc and these people aren't technically savvy and can be easily taken for a ride. While you might have good apples, there are going to be tons of bad apples, people just coming with a white paper and asking for millions of dollars. Coming back to your question, the rich don't need protection as its ok to lose money when you are rich. The 'not rich' need protection as if they lose all their savings, it will seriously harm their lives.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#215

Post by tim333 » Mon, Sep 04, 2017, 1:06 PM UTC

rothbardrand wrote: post #154

samsonradu wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because when the whole system collapses due to gigantic bubbles explodind (caused by the lesser financially educated masses) the government will likely use your tax money to keeps thing afloat and you won't like that either. Your money only has value in an economically stable context.

First off, bubbles are a side effect of the money cycle which is created by central banking -- both the Dotcom and 2008 bubbles were created by the Fed selling money below cost, building a massive carry trade in, for instance, houses. Secondly, if there is a crash, the best thing to do is nothing. Let the people who invested poorly get wiped out-- it's better for the economy. (There are examples of this too- crashes…

Hmm... bubbles can also happen without central banking - think the original tulip bubble for example. Also not all bailouts are bad, for example the auto bailout was estimated to have saved ~380k jobs. And it wasn't the auto industry's fault the banking system went wonky. The system may not be perfect but it's not all bad.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#216

Post by Zarath » Mon, Sep 04, 2017, 1:08 PM UTC

verroq wrote: post #81

ryanlol wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it would be idiotic to let this madness continue. Why? Inevitably the fools will just run out of money. This "problem" seems to take care of itself.

Because these "fools" once they run out of money will be out on streets taking social security. Then it becomes our problem again.

Isn't moral hazard awesome?

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#217

Post by davidgerard » Mon, Sep 04, 2017, 1:09 PM UTC

rothbardrand wrote: post #189

richardknop wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can create a new cryptocurrency over a weekend. It's not really that hard and most of these ICOs are just copycats with few parameter changes. Projects which actually develop something new are very few so kudos to them. Majority are just quick copies of existing code and rebranding.

No. 2013 was a lot of clones of bitcoin with a few parameters changed. Nowadays ICOs I'm seeing involve a lot of very hard work. The risk is that the teams may way under-estimate how much work it is (And I think that's what's going to cause them to fail) but they are a lot more ambitious than you are characterizing.

This doesn't appear to be an accurate description of the ICO market as it exists. The hardest work in ICOs is the marketing. At the back end, they literally put in the fine print that the thing you just bought is worthless.

https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/icos-magic-beans-and-bu...

Look up the EOS fine print. They took down the PDF, but I kept a spare:

https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/references/EOS%20Token%...

TODO this evening: write up a blog post on the ICO for (I am not making this up) synthetic rhino horn dick pills.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#218

Post by Joeboy » Mon, Sep 04, 2017, 1:10 PM UTC

GotAnyMegadeth wrote: post #203

Joeboy wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless it decreases short-term fatalities.

Hello! Sorry I'm a bit confused by your reply, do you mean if it ONLY decreases short term ones and not long term?

I just mean there will be additional costs to the state if it means more people survive car crashes and therefore need medical care. But those costs might be outweighed if longer-term survivors tend to have less severe injuries.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#219

Post by omarchowdhury » Mon, Sep 04, 2017, 1:11 PM UTC

logicallee wrote: post #171

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 large…

https://science.tokenhub.com/

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#220

Post by oblio » Mon, Sep 04, 2017, 1:15 PM UTC

rothbardrand wrote: post #161

adbachman wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the first dozen ICOs that turn out to be scams can break consumer confidence across the whole market. When people stop trusting, the system collapses. This isn't hardship, just put your money somewhere else.

The reason ICOs were such a boon is that there has been no other path for the middle class to invest in startups. ICOs gave a level playing field and produced a resulting boom. Most people don't even know what a cryptocurrency is.

> The reason ICOs were such a boon is that there has been no other path for the middle class to invest in startups.

You know what they say about forgetting history...

The middle classes (or lower class) aren't really allowed to invest in business because it's really risky (see: Great Depression). When 1 rich person loses $1 billion, that's sad. When 100000 grandpas lose $10000, that's a national tragedy.