
Investor Alert: Public Companies Making ICO-Related Claims - hudon
https://www.investor.gov/additional-resources/news-alerts/alerts-bulletins/investor-alert-public-companies-making-ico-related
======
elecengin
Matt Levine has a great (humorous) overview of the First Bitcoin Corp
shenanigans (scroll to the second section):

[https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-25/insider-t...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-25/insider-
trading-bitcoin-and-libor)

~~~
mintplant
A very entertaining read.

> "We have been very busy generating more than 100 unique cryptocurrencies
> ranging from disrupting the air-miles-loyalty industry to providing
> solutions to the cannabis industry."

100?! So they're just copy/pasting the Bitcoin source under different altcoin
names, and calling it innovation?

> "In order to purchase and support WEED anyone that sends 1 President Johnson
> coin ($GARY) to the Company’s Omni Layer Bitcoin Wallet will receive 1 WEED
> coin into their Omni Wallet."

Wow.

~~~
nathancahill
No need to copy/paste: [http://build-a-co.in/](http://build-a-co.in/)

------
aml183
This is just penny stocks finding new ways to scam investors. ICO is the big
buzzword.

------
jmcgough
I feel like a lot of ICO are a way to bypass regulation that protects
investors. Smells like we've hit peak tulip mania.

~~~
zdkl
Peak? We haven't seen anything yet. Wait till the big financial group behind
ethereum figure out how to legally interface their security/options/bond pools
to a coin token for sale to the general public.

------
aphextron
Stuff like this combined with the general credit bubble is giving me the
feeling the Next Big One is going to be 10x worse than '08.

~~~
kwelstr
I think it will be 10x worse than the 90's tech bubble. I was there, it was
painful.

~~~
TuringNYC
My bigger question would be how much housing prices and rent would go down.
They tend not to go down as much due to subsidies and stickiness. Absurd
housing costs are _the_ key thing keeping me away from the bay area, but it is
so bad I'd need a 50% drop to make it close to reasonable.

~~~
whatnotests
They won't go down while Chinese and Indians are moving in.

~~~
quoquoquo
so what about the greedy white people that sell to newcomers at inflated
prices in turn pricing out their "own"?

------
seibelj
ICO's of some form are unquestionably the future of raising capital for most
tech companies up to a certain size (at least until ICO investors can
consistently put in $1bil+). I'm saying this as someone who is living the ICO
experience ([https://airtoken.com](https://airtoken.com)). Compared to
traditional angel / VC raising, this is hands down the best use case for
blockchain so far. VC's and angel groups will become pre-sale stakers and
stamps of approval for companies to boost the ICO, but the days of
entrepreneurs spending months traveling around wining and dining the richest
people in tech are over.

~~~
amluto
Paraphrasing somewhat snarkily, you seem to be saying that selling securities
of limited intrinsic value to as many clueless investors a as you can find is
the future of fundraising. Screw Reg D, the SEC, any concept of selling only
to informed investors, having some legal force behind your securities, etc.

Why bother pitching to people who are actually qualified to review your claims
and business model?

IANAL, but I think the penalties for improperly selling securities are pretty
severe, for good reason.

~~~
mrb
Before bashing the ICO model, consider that an ICO really is just (1)
crowdfunding (with a blockchain to keep track of the tokens) combined with (2)
markets to trade said tokens.

So are you against (1) crowdfunding, Kickstarter, etc?

Or are you against (2) token trading markets?

~~~
klipt
I'm against crowdfunding that masquerades as investment. People should know
there's a high chance of 0 return and complete loss of principle with
something like Kickstarter; it's better to think of it as patronage of artists
you like with a _small chance_ of something back.

~~~
wheelerwj
i think you mean to say that you're against token trading that masquerades as
crowdunding.

i agree, its a problem. but its solveable.

------
zwarag
One would say that if you have the money you earned it and you would research
the company you're going to give your money. But most of this "Alerts" are
just common sense. What am I missing or why are they releasing these alerts?

~~~
ringaroundthetx
Did you read the alert?

Tiny bulletin board companies are using buzzwords to get stock traders to buy
their shares for no reason.

The alert is that one of the buzzwords is "ICO" and "token sale".

Just like when the buzzword was "internet" or "business chat" or "self driving
car".

It is just an alert about the buzzword being used in the stock market, before
people FOMO.

This alert isn't about or geared towards ICOs or token sales.

~~~
jcmoscon
Not only investors, but I think we all should consider these buzzwords while
doing startup job search ;)

