311–320 of 360 posts
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So I see CoinList uses AngelList, which I think verifies accreditation via financial accounts. From what I've read, the SEC doesn't mandate any particular method to verify net worth. In this space, wouldn't it make sense to accept a signature proving ownership of a large ETH balance?
Doesn't help--could just have your wealthy friend sign for you.
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Ah, the classic SV "he or she has a real adult life, and thus cannot understand my h4xx0r skillz" chestnut.
Real adult activities and hacking are extremely opposed endeavors. One can make time for both, but the prior probability is quite low that a person with a real adult life will also be on the cutting edge of technology.
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This literally changes nothing. Regulated companies already knew what the findings would be. Unregulated companies still don't care.
What is an "unregulated company"? A bunch of geeks in a US basement could get prosecuted. A bunch of geeks in a non-US basement illegally selling unregistered securities to US persons might, too. And, if they did it personally instead of through a limited liability company of some sort, and they are found liable for their investors' losses, that will be a personal liability.
Something like a DAO contract that doesn't have an issuer (assuming the DAO had an issuer, not sure). Or a payout mechanism like zcash where the mining function pays out to founders wallets over time.
It seems inconsistent that ICOs are seen as securities whereas the underlying asset isn't. I think the differentiating factor is the degree of decentralization. If the SEC could shut down bitcoin they would. But they can't. So instead they'll go after ICO issuers who happen to be in the US. But many ICOs won't have to be in the US, or issued by humans for that matter.
Personally, the genie is out of the bottle. Value exists in the decentralized digital world, and it now has programmable properties. Trying to regulate securities has become the equivalent of regulating TCP packets. It can be done but at what cost..
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Jesse from CoinList & Protocol Labs here -- completely agree that following securities regulation is an especially great idea. Unfortunately doing that correctly can be really challenging. Despite several misleading doom-and-gloom articles written today ( http://fortune.com/2017/07/25/sec-says-digital-tokens-are-se... ) the SEC has not said that all tokens are securities. Rather, application tokens are a promising ne…
So I see CoinList uses AngelList, which I think verifies accreditation via financial accounts. From what I've read, the SEC doesn't mandate any particular method to verify net worth. In this space, wouldn't it make sense to accept a signature proving ownership of a large ETH balance?
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Is it still ok to use ICOs as as glorified Patreon or Kickstarter without worrying you'll run afoul of the securities laws? As long as no one is expecting profits from the tokens they buy from you. Where it gets strange is if your tokens are picked up by an exchange. What happens if someone buys your tokens with the expectation that they can sell them to someone else? Then the price of your tokens might rise, and the…
Im curious why would the price of tokens (which are not equity backed securities) rise? If I understand it right, your hypothetical is just a kickstarter project where a funding level reward is a "virtual token" and just as say a reward of a t-shirt this token doesn't represent equity in the project? Would anyone expect the value of the t-shirt to go up? Is it possible, yeah actually, imagine if Apple originated thro…
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That's not an externality. An honest business is not entitled to any customer's business. If the customer wants to squander their money away at the casino, leaving them with no money to spend at the honest business, they have that right. It's their money, and they are not obligated to spend it at the honest business. And in any case, the market for lemons is a theoretical exercise. It does not actually happen in real…
the point isn't about anyone's "rights" about having money spent on them/spending their money. The point is that everyone is worse off in a situation like this, both customer and (legitimate) business. It is a type of market failure, everyone loses.
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At one point, financial regulations were somewhat optional. The SEC was created to put an end to securities fraud, because it turns out that having no rules on speculation is a bad idea. Do we need to repeat history, just to prove that financial regulations are a good idea? We had a Depression once. I'd not like to do it again.
Are you saying the SEC would have prevented the depression?
So, yes.
It's easy to see why poor decisions repeat cyclically.
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Ah, the classic SV "he or she has a real adult life, and thus cannot understand my h4xx0r skillz" chestnut.
Real adult activities and hacking are extremely opposed endeavors. One can make time for both, but the prior probability is quite low that a person with a real adult life will also be on the cutting edge of technology.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So I see CoinList uses AngelList, which I think verifies accreditation via financial accounts. From what I've read, the SEC doesn't mandate any particular method to verify net worth. In this space, wouldn't it make sense to accept a signature proving ownership of a large ETH balance?
Doesn't help--could just have your wealthy friend sign for you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it still ok to use ICOs as as glorified Patreon or Kickstarter without worrying you'll run afoul of the securities laws? As long as no one is expecting profits from the tokens they buy from you. Where it gets strange is if your tokens are picked up by an exchange. What happens if someone buys your tokens with the expectation that they can sell them to someone else? Then the price of your tokens might rise, and the…
Is there any advantage of using ICOs as as glorified Patreon or Kickstarter compared to just taking orders in ETH? Why are you issuing a token to begin with?
if the token is part of or essential to a yet-to-be-developed app, but not themselves traded, I cannot see why there would be any sense of an investment. but I would in such cases never market the sale of such tokens as an ICO or crowdfunding. I would offer them up for sale, as a product pure and simple. buy now. use later.
i see it as selling an atari 2600 with no game cartridges, and then selling games later when available.