I don't have anything to add to this discussion, but I just wanna say that I'm impressed by the bulletin's clarity. I'm used to reading government information that's difficult to parse and dive into. It's easy to fall into a belief that government agencies don't really know what they're doing, and it's just a bunch of monkeys banging at typewriters, but seeing clearly written posts discussing current and relevant events helps to silence those beliefs.
I'm seriously wondering, though... Have there really been that many ICOs? As an outsider the general impression I get (which I recognize might be completely inaccurate) from most coins is that they're "get rich quick" schemes.
A while back I was trying to read up on Ethereum, and despite their nice landing page and superficial info.... Once I tried digging in further into the actual code and actually running any stuff, it was a horribly confusing mess that made me hesitant to put my trust in them. All their docs and wikis seemed full of outdated links and information.
Does anybody know a nice ICO timeline coupled with line charts that would help to grasp the (up to date) bigger picture of this phenomenon ?
So far the best i've stumble upon is : https://www.tokendata.io/ but the time dimension is not linear nor clear
The fact that they've grammatically classified the noun "blockchain" correctly makes me agree. There is more than one blockchain! I don't know why the copy editors as news orgs believe otherwise. Someone smarter than, please let me know if I'm wrong!
Both the SEC and DoJ have done really remarkable jobs of keeping up with and publishing documentation related to cryptocurrencies and blockchains in general IMO. I remember thinking the same around the time the DoJ was auctioning off bitcoins seized from Silk Road - their site explaining what the auction was, what bitoins where, and why / how the auction would work suggested they really did understand what they were dealing with and was extremely clear technical writing.
The SEC uses quite a mild language here. Issuers often avoid mentioning even what they sell: revenue flow, profit, or just hashes. White papers has no traces of legal entities involved, dispute resolution jurisdiction, financial statements.
The cryptocurrency community is hilariously bad (well, it would be funny if people weren't getting fleeced) about putting blog posts through Latex and acting like they've written a "paper".
The people who have written dozens of real papers that end up in a dustbin somewhere are jealous. The funny thing is most of these docs would be more accessible as blog posts, but those don't provide the same faux-academic thing con men need.
Not sure if they're actually that amateur or it's more cynical and they know it's the way you do business - probably both.
For the time being its going to be more of a "I'll know it when I see it and so will you" type of situation. Preventing scams and things advertised as investment opportunities appear to be the focus without trying to pin down an exact framework for detecting it, but I wouldn't say they are being vague about what it is they're are going to limit. If they tried creating an exact framework with the information available today it would likely miss the mark in terms of a balance between restrictiveness and protection to investors/purchasers.
This seems pretty reasonable and is the same conclusion which the DAO investigation came to. I think both ICO creators and participants will benefit from this new information now that we have a clear line in the sand as to how these things can operate. The risk won't decrease substantially in buying these tokens, these projects can go bust just like a kickstarter project can fail but at the very least people in the US will think twice about running outright scams.
It has been recently suggested that the SEC may go after exchanges which hold any ICO token regardless of how it was sold and advertised, I'm pretty sure they don't want to go that far, this will only push exchanges into decentralized systems which are difficult to shutdown. There has to be some give and take on both sides here really.
In the post, I explore what constitutes a security by examining case law and draw comparisons to other means of raising money for companies that are typically outside the purview of securities (gift cards, Kickstarter). Hopefully this helps provide perspective.
Not written by a lawyer. This really needs an analysis from a securities lawyer.
The SEC concluded that the DAO was a security, but that they were not going to take action on it. That's within their discretionary authority. They may simply decided that they weren't going to go after this issue retroactively. They've now published some guidance on the subject, so future issuers can't claim there were no rules in that area.
Expect the SEC to go after somebody who does an initial coin offering and converts the money to their own use, without generating any benefit for the investors.
It seems like Golem compute tokens would not be considered securities, but what about obvious joke coins that are only a value store, like the FUCK token?
Sincerely hope that people are paying attention. The SEC is as omnipotent as the IRS, in so much as they can make your life a living hell... in very short order. Recommend that people register their securities or currencies with them... besides, registration gives your product the scent of legitimacy, right?
TheAceOfHearts|8 years ago
I'm seriously wondering, though... Have there really been that many ICOs? As an outsider the general impression I get (which I recognize might be completely inaccurate) from most coins is that they're "get rich quick" schemes.
A while back I was trying to read up on Ethereum, and despite their nice landing page and superficial info.... Once I tried digging in further into the actual code and actually running any stuff, it was a horribly confusing mess that made me hesitant to put my trust in them. All their docs and wikis seemed full of outdated links and information.
pgeorgep|8 years ago
ttul|8 years ago
lucasverra|8 years ago
bpicolo|8 years ago
That's an entirely prescient statement that suggests the SEC has done a serious bit of homework and has put careful thought into the subject.
Animats|8 years ago
burritofanatic|8 years ago
sethhochberg|8 years ago
anton_tarasenko|8 years ago
A proper prospectus:
- https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1447599/000119312515...
And how ICO white papers look like:
- https://detectortoken.com/docs/DetectorToken_White_Paper.pdf
- https://magos.io/bluepaper.pdf
aaron-lebo|8 years ago
The people who have written dozens of real papers that end up in a dustbin somewhere are jealous. The funny thing is most of these docs would be more accessible as blog posts, but those don't provide the same faux-academic thing con men need.
Not sure if they're actually that amateur or it's more cynical and they know it's the way you do business - probably both.
jjn2009|8 years ago
jjn2009|8 years ago
It has been recently suggested that the SEC may go after exchanges which hold any ICO token regardless of how it was sold and advertised, I'm pretty sure they don't want to go that far, this will only push exchanges into decentralized systems which are difficult to shutdown. There has to be some give and take on both sides here really.
andrew311|8 years ago
https://medium.com/@andrew311/thoughts-on-the-secs-initial-c...
In the post, I explore what constitutes a security by examining case law and draw comparisons to other means of raising money for companies that are typically outside the purview of securities (gift cards, Kickstarter). Hopefully this helps provide perspective.
Animats|8 years ago
The SEC concluded that the DAO was a security, but that they were not going to take action on it. That's within their discretionary authority. They may simply decided that they weren't going to go after this issue retroactively. They've now published some guidance on the subject, so future issuers can't claim there were no rules in that area.
Expect the SEC to go after somebody who does an initial coin offering and converts the money to their own use, without generating any benefit for the investors.
mthoms|8 years ago
deep_concern|8 years ago
mschuster91|8 years ago
narrator|8 years ago
Postscapes|8 years ago
spraak|8 years ago
sctb|8 years ago
SoMisanthrope|8 years ago