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SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

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Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#311

Post by CryptoPunk »

icebraining wrote: post #309
CryptoPunk wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be better for them to derive their enjoyment from participating in an actual investment market. They'll learn something useful instead just refining their superstitious rituals. Imagine if anyone could buy $5 worth of stock for the product they're buying at 7-11. Over-time these small purchases would let them amass a sizeable base of assets, and all the while they'd have a stake in parts of the real economy,…

> Imagine if anyone could buy $5 worth of stock for the product they're buying at 7-11. Yeah, and in ten years they might get $14, which will just give some extra profit to their creditors when they file for bankruptcy for unpaid medical bills, or be captured in a civil forfeiture. And if somehow they managed to keep it and actually save a couple grand, that just means they'll become ineligible for SNAP and lose much…

>>Yeah, and in ten years they might get $14, which will just give some extra profit to their creditors when they file for bankruptcy for unpaid medical bills, or be captured in a civil forfeiture. And if somehow they managed to keep it and actually save a couple grand, that just means they'll become ineligible for SNAP and lose much more in benefits.

How is that any different than matching two numbers on a lotto ticket and winning $10, or $1000?

With real-world investing, especially in micro-caps, they have a chance to hit it big as well, and make millions. So it has the same dream escapist aspect. And it provides a much more solid grounding for the future than throwing money in a game that you are mathematically guaranteed to lose if you play long enough. Investing is not a game of pure chance, and it is not zero sum. With enough skill, you can actually make money, and your skill can improve over time, and doing so actually improves how the economy as a whole allocates capital.

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#312

Post by pjc50 »

aey wrote: post #283
arcticbull wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ve got this backwards. Anyone can sell securities to any investor if the company they’re selling shares in can commit to providing regular audited financial disclosures showing they’re not frauds. It’s on the product being brought to market to show it’s fit for sale, not for the investor to show they’re “sophisticated.” If they show they’re sophisticated they can elect to waive the reporting requirements. You cou…

Except the reporting requirement are cost prohibitive for a company that is seeking seed funding to file an s-1 or a reg—a even. So us, poor unsophisticated plebs, can’t invest in anything until post IPO. Which seems to be way after the majority of the gains have been captured. Ironically people are trying to build fully automatic DAOs, such that the use of funds is fully transparent. Effectively baking in the report…

> seems to be way after the majority of the gains have been captured.

And also after the point where most of the failed companies have collapsed. Don't let survivorship bias run your investment decisions.

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#313

Post by xs83 »

thesausageking wrote: post #183
flyGuyOnTheSly wrote: post #131

>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 To be fair... Yes Kik did sell them as investments... claiming rising demand would drive up the price of Kin... which did indeed happen. The kin tokens increased in value over 10x from the price they were sold to investors at. It didn't last, of…

> I still don't understand why they didn't get SEC approval before offering the token sale, however. Because what they did was illegal and the SEC would never have approved it. To do it legally, they would've had to only sell to accredited investors and there's no way they raise $100m doing that.

And "accredited investors" only are the antithesis of crypto, the fact that people of any age are able to participate in this was the reason it was so successful as an ICO. They marketed the product offering specifically at teens (Kik's demographic).

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#314

Post by xs83 »

fuddle wrote: post #114

Looking at the price now, it's has a market cap of $18 million. It reached $987 million at one point. Quite the bubble! https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/kin/

The have recently done a coin swap too - I have to assume that many people haven't swapped yet

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#315

Post by DennisP »

dangero wrote: post #287
DennisP wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other popular smart contracts right now: an ETH-backed token that uses a derivative to maintain a fairly stable value, the Uniswap decentralized exchange, and games with non-fungible tokens for player assets.

“popular”

At its peak the stablecoin contract held $2 billion, I'd say that's reasonably popular.

None of this stuff is ready for the mass market because scaling is so limited, but that's on track to get about 1000X better over the next two years.

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#316

Post by TheKarateKid »

joshstrange wrote: post #22

Are there legitimate uses for Kik past NSFW uses? I only ask because that is the only context in which I've ever seen Kik used. I didn't know if it was popular in other places (not the USA) for SFW purposes.

Kik originally was what WhatsApp became - a multi-platform messaging service set to replace SMS/MMS. Back in 2010, it was set to become the next BBM as it exploded in popularity and was available on every smartphone platform - Android, iOS, Windows Phone AND mobile, BlackBerry. There may have even been feature phone support as well.

This was before iMessage too, so the group chat and photo sharing capabilities were attractive. Facebook Messenger barely existed, and there was no such thing as Twitter or Instagram DMs.

Their app has barely changed since then and it’s taken new life as an AIM style messenger where you only need to exchange usernames to communicate. It’s bloated, slow, and has features that are stuck in 2013.

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#317

Post by bitxbitxbitcoin »

propter_hoc wrote: post #178
nprateem wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who even bought this stuff? North Korea probably.

Actually: > 167. [...] Kik declined to sell Kin to investors from certain countries, including Canada, China, Cuba, and North Korea.

This is HN. We all know that anyone from one of those countries that wanted to, could easily have put money into this just by changing their IP address.

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#318

Post by VikingCoder »

badfrog wrote: post #217
VikingCoder wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the technology a scam? You say no. Is the ICO a scam? Yes, it wasn't legal. "This filing makes it appear that Kik was attempting to scam investors." Yes. They were. They pretended their ICO wasn't going to break securities law.

> Is the ICO a scam? Yes, it wasn't legal. Not everything that's illegal is a scam. If somebody sells me cocaine and I'm happy with the product, it's illegal but nobody was scammed.

Yes, that's true. However, many securities laws exist to protect investors. So, if you knowingly violate securities laws, there's a pretty good chance you are knowingly putting investors in a disadvantageous position. That's a textbook definition of a scam.

Re: SEC Charges Kik With Conducting $100M Unregistered ICO

#319

Post by magnamerc »

will_brown wrote: post #38
seibelj wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethereum also had an ICO (paid in Bitcoin) and it delivered. Cosmos held an ICO and delivered. Not all ICOs are scams.

>Ethereum also had an ICO (paid in Bitcoin) and it delivered. According to the SEC it was also an illegal offering of a security, and its receiving special treatment bc they considered it to have matured and no longer be considered a security, therefore grandfathered its grandfathered in unlike any other ICO. No one else is going to have the good fortune of being able to offer an unregistered security then mature int…

ETH is more of a commodity than a share in some enterprise.
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