
China's Central Bank Bans ICOs - hgdsraj
https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/04/chinas-central-bank-has-banned-icos/amp/
======
rothbardrand
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 matter is
this is the essence of capitalism-- it is my right to invest in Uber's seed
round and Uber's right to have me as an investor (if they consent), whether I
am "accredited" or not. This is basic "Freedom of association" which underpins
everything from gay marriage to the right to refuse service to barefoot
people.

Also, of course, I've lost my own $10k on more than one occasions starting
companies. (And I've made much more as well.) Why do I need protection from
myself? Especially when the terms of that protection are written by people who
don't know what SHA256 is.

No, these regulations mainly keep the middle class and the not-quite-wealthy-
enough from investing in the highest upside opportunities. I know it's better
to put $10k into 10 different seed rounds than $100k into one seed round. I
don't need to be accredited to know that.

And I've certainly lost a lot more than that (and made even more) in the stock
market using complicated options strategies involving multiple legs and
expirations-- I'm the very definition of a sophisticated investor....

.... but I can't be trusted to give a startup $10k?

This is what regulation tends to do, which people don't seem to get -- it
raises the bar keeping the little guy out.

Once again, the rich get richer and the poor and middle class have less
opportunity.

PS-- To those responding: Yes, I have heard "but what about the grandmas?
won't anyone think of the grandmas???" before. I'm acutely aware of the
history of this type of regulation in the USA. Ultimately this stuff keeps
grandmas poor.

You should all read G. Edward Griffens "The Creature from Jekyll Island". It's
a history book about money, but it's not in the least dry.

Government always has an excuse, usually a claim to be helping or protecting
people, when it violates our rights.

Keeping me out of Uber's seed round is a violation of my rights.

~~~
cyphar
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 on the ICO hill is a bit odd. I thought it was
fairly clear (at least, it was fairly clear to me) that the whole "industry"
is mostly powered by hype -- which leads to people being swindled out of their
money. Wanting to protect a completely unregulated industry's ability to fool
people into wasting their money doesn't seem like a sane or sustainable
position (that's how economic crashes happen).

> Keeping me out of Uber's seed round is a violation of my rights.

First of all, this is a story about China. Second of all, it's a story about
ICOs and not non-ICO startups. Third of all, is it also a violation of your
rights to not be able to fund companies in countries that are at war with your
country (which I assume is the US)? Is it a violation of your rights to not be
able to fund illegal activity? I'm just trying to gauge at which point does
your view on "the inalienable right to invest in anything" stop short? I would
expect that China is trying to come to a decision about whether ICOs should be
made illegal or more regulated.

~~~
rothbardrand
Those "studies" are self serving. That is the political propaganda keeping you
feeling safe in having your rights violated. This isn't a question of flavor
of politics- but fundamental rights. Do you have freedom of association or
not?

Secondly, you think its "fairly clear to [you]" that these ICOs are scams. I
am sure some are, but I know for a fact that many are not. I am quite capable
of telling the difference (as a blockchain engineer.)

The presumption that every startup failing is "people being swindled out of
their money" is very odd one for a discussion forum run by y-combinator.

Is y-combinator being swindled when an investment fails?

And you're still sidestepping the point:

It's my right to apply my own discernment to what are good and what are bad
investments. Not people who don't know the difference between SHA1 and SHA2.

~~~
elefanten
One of your key premises, that investing in startups is a key / good path to
getting rich, is flawed. Investing in startups is notoriously NOT that stable
of an investment vehicle. If you're a small-scale enough investor to not meet
accreditation rules, why would you WANT to throw 10k at a startup?

You speak in terms of rights and that's one debate to have. But evaluating the
material harm in this situation, the notion that this denies upward economic
mobility in a significant way seems overstated.

~~~
goptimize
"One of your key premises, that investing in startups is a key / good path to
getting rich, is flawed" \- straw man argument

------
richardknop
Does this spell trouble for Ethereum? Without ICOs (one of it's major features
if not the most important one) what else will drive the price speculation?

I believe prices are inflated because of ICOs. People are buying tokens
counting on ICO hype to increase their value so they can flip their initial
invested principal with 2x/3x/4x return.

Without ICOs this speculative technique will not be possible so we will see
how many people are actually interested in buying these worthless tokens
because they believe in their "features", rather than speculate on their
price.

I wonder though if the speculation will just move from China to other
countries though and the bubble will continue until there is more action by
regulators around the world against this.

~~~
proofofstake
Maybe in the short term, longer term it is no trouble. ICOs are far from the
main use case for Ethereum. Speculation is driven by the price not close to
matching the price if/when the technology matures. If anything, most ICOs pull
money from Ethereum, they don't make the price go up.

Being interested in tokens for their "features" not the price is very archaic.
This also does not happen with stocks anymore: People hold for a few
months/days/minutes, then sell, they don't sit on stock for many years like we
used to.

My guess: China will allow ICOs after drafting up proper legislation and
regulation. It would not benefit China's economy to blanket ban a new emerging
technology. They just want to prevent crypto as a way to move money out of
China, take a cut of the profit.

Another guess: Regulation will be good for established players (like Ethereum
and 2016/2017 ICOs), but bad for speculators and newcomers. It will thus shoot
past its intended goal of protecting investors: Those who like to gamble with
money they can't afford to lose will find other get-rich-quick schemes
unrelated to crypto. In Las Vegas you are actually sure to eventually lose all
your money.

~~~
rficcaglia
it would benefit China's economy if a bubble were to pop and wipe out huge
amounts of savings

my guess: China will not allow ICOs but maybe after 10 years or so,
blockchains and smart contracts will quietly infiltrate boring business use
cases and financial services. especially if they can turn it into a
centralized tool for control.

what better authoritarian tool could there be than a _centralized_ ledger of
all economic transactions, run by the government. in the name of reducing
fraud/laundering/crime you could have absolute visibility and regulatory
control on all economic activity.

EDIT: spelling

~~~
aleh
If the ledger is centralized, what is the advantage of using blockchain?

~~~
rficcaglia
probably none. that is a different discussion. there were many better
solutions than http for the web, hotly debated, but http became the defacto
standard. betamax vs vhs. lots of reasons why inferior technology sometimes
wins mind/market share

i dont drink the blockchain kool aid myself as a silver bullet for every
problem, read IBM's hyperledger marketing materials and they try to make a
case for centralized permissioned blockchain. ymmv.

but if millions of your citizens are using blockchains, as an authoritative
regime, you probably will want to control its use. you arent particularly
interested in the best tech solution to a problem. just control.

and lest anyone think i am abusive of china, i fully expect the US to highly
regulate the hell out of this eventually ... if not now under the Tweeter in
Chief, when the Dems get control again.

------
ig1
It's important to note that ICOs are a mechanism rather than a financial
instrument and it's the nature of the underlying financial instrument that
generally influences the legality.

For example if it's used as pre-sale (i.e. currency that will be used in
product for a future product) then that's likely legal in most places, if it's
used as a proxy for equity then it's likely illegal in most countries (most
countries prohibit unregulated share offerings to non-sophisticated
consumers).

Although in some cases ICOs might get considered as gambling if the purpose is
primarily considered to be for speculation rather than whatever the underlying
product is.

~~~
rficcaglia
not a lawyer but be careful, some "products" like a club membership for
example, have been ruled as actually securities

in short, any "product" can be a security if there is even a hint of
speculative investment activity (and a motivated prosecutor)

really it is less about logic and definitions...this audience wants to parse
things and recompile. in law and moreso in regulatory affairs, it is far more
about guiding behavior by carrots or sticks to a particular
philosophical/moral/politial/economic subjective end goal

------
jcrei
meanwhile in Estonia... they are considering issuing their very own ICO
[https://thenextweb.com/eu/2017/08/23/estonia-could-be-the-
fi...](https://thenextweb.com/eu/2017/08/23/estonia-could-be-the-first-
country-with-an-official-cryptocoin/)

~~~
casualwasher
Estonia's gov is famous for adapting new things. I still remember their
initiative on e-visa. Actually China is trying to do that too. But crypto
coins are made to decentralize things, I wonder how these gov-lead coins will
play any parts.

~~~
the_mitsuhiko
> e-visa

You got a link to that how? How does that work with Schengen?

~~~
CCing
Is not a e-visa...it called e-residency and simply is an ID card for use all
the estonian services(like: open a company, pay taxes, open a bank account
etc...)

It NOT GIVE a work permit in EU and of course not give a permission to travel
in schengeng.

It's simply an ID card. The main difference is that: \- Normally in other EU
countries for have an ID card for services, you must live there, while with
e-residency you can do have and do all the stuff remotely. \- It's pretty
useless, you can google it and see how had a lot of hype, but in real case
uses, it's useless (example: yes you can open a company remotely, but if you
don't live in estonia, is a mess with taxes...and having an e-residency,
doesn't give you a valid visa for live+work there...so often you can't move to
estonia to work, even if you have a company opened in estonia)

~~~
jaclaz
>It's pretty useless, you can google it and see how had a lot of hype, but in
real case uses, it's useless (example: yes you can open a company remotely,
but if you don't live in estonia, is a mess with taxes...

Pheew, I thought I was the only one with this opinion, given the hype there is
about this thing all over the net.

To me the whole stuff seems a lot like the plans of the gnomes in South Park
(but in five steps):

1) get an e-residency (please read as "pay us some little money")

2) establish an Estonia company (please read as "pay us some more money")

3) open a bank account in this or that bank (please read as "give our friends
a little more money")

4) ?

5) Profit.

The only practical use I can see is to create a new sort of Double Irish:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement)

but aimed to the single/poor instead of large corporations, but it has to be
seen how the EU will take the idea ...

~~~
StavrosK
You definitely aren't the only one with that opinion. If you've visited the
card's homepage or tried to register for one, you'll have realized it confers
almost no privileges.

~~~
jaclaz
Yep, and - just to get back on topic - they (the good Estonian people) are
seemingly (maybe) plainning a government backed ICO:

[https://medium.com/e-residency-blog/estonia-could-offer-
estc...](https://medium.com/e-residency-blog/estonia-could-offer-estcoins-to-
e-residents-a3a5a5d3c894)

Previous (few) comments on HN:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15071682](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15071682)

------
billpg
Yes! We should use PNG files for icons rather than Microsoft's proprietary
format.

What?

------
Nursie
Interesting.

To a relative outsider, a lot of the current movement in the crypto-currency
space seems to be about amplifying the holdings of those who already hold. The
BCC fork, for instance, effectively gave current bitcoin holders an overnight
boost in the 15-20% range.

ICOs appear to be a way to finance things in a kickstartetr type way, only
with instantly trade-able coins in the form of a new crypto-currency, with
buy-in conducted in ether. These provide a new speculation vehicle,
often/usually totally divorced from the underlying activity of the company.

Both of these things neatly skip any sort of bootstrapping phase that might be
inherent to a new crypto-currency, and serve insiders and the already crypto-
wealthy rather than newcomers or those outside the existing bubble. The whole
thing seems very tenuous, and speaks very much of an "in-crowd".

~~~
chinathrow
> Both of these things neatly skip any sort of bootstrapping phase

So true. That bootstrapping phase has been reduced to dream up a whitepaper
and that's basically it. All what comes afterwards to pump the launch is
clever marketing (I've seen Google ads, FB ads, celebs on Twitter etc etc). I
cannot understand why it is legal to behave like that.

------
nickserv
Had to dig around 3 sites before finding a definition for ICO:

ICO (Initial Crypto-Token Offering) refers to financing through the issuance
of encrypted tokens (Crypto-Token).

~~~
vortico
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_Coin_Offering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_Coin_Offering)

People should really learn to define acronyms before using them in all writing
mediums. I don't care if the author has used the term 10,000 with colleagues,
he should still define them upon their first use in the article body.

~~~
vortico
10,000 times, I mean.

------
richardknop
Finally somebody in position of power stepped in to stop this mad online
casino. I was not expecting this sensible move from China, was hoping EU or US
would lead the way on regulating this crypto fraud. I hope Fed/ECB follow the
Chinese Central Bank and ban ICOs too and start regulating crypto and
enforcing some basic rules.

~~~
hasenj
Actually I think such bold decisions can only be made by a government that is
not encumbered with lobbies and business interests.

~~~
baq
what makes you think china's institutions aren't?

~~~
hasenj
Oppressive regimes are usually effective at making decisions that hurt many
individuals (even unfairly) for the (supposed?) benefit of the collective.

~~~
baq
that's very optimistic if not naive. the ones who usually benefit are the
oppressors, the rest are left to their own devices if they aren't causing
problems - real or perceived - or even are deemed to cause problems in the
future even if they do nothing wrong right now. the collective benefits only
in utopia circumstances, ie. never.

~~~
SZJX
Well this is really the same for all kinds of libertarian/capitalist regimes.
Branding China as an "oppressive regime" is really just political propaganda
speech. If you say China is an oppressive regime so is US, and the US might be
even more of a slave state really.

China nowadays has even more reckless capitalism than that in the US, and the
gap between the rich and the poor is expanding incredibly fast.

------
tankenmate
I think it is safe to say that this is because it is something the party can't
control (in the somewhat more overt sense rather than the regulatory sense).

------
davidgerard
> The SEC hasn’t made a firm move in the U.S. yet — despite making
> announcements

What they've done is very gentle soft-touch stuff. They've been calling ICO
promoters and strongly suggesting they get their legal ducks in a row.

[https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2017/09/01/the-sec-
told...](https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2017/09/01/the-sec-told-you-it-
was-watching-now-its-calling-ico-promoters-protostarr-benjacoin/)

Protostarr - who _hadn 't consulted a lawyer at all_ \- shut down and returned
the money; BenjaCoin went "actually we're good" and has argued such to the
SEC.

The SEC's approach is _considerably_ softer-touch than most people expected -
but despite the rantings of crypto paranoiacs, the government is not in fact
there to harsh your mellow. Point 3 of the SEC’s mission statement is
"facilitate capital formation" \- they explicitly see their job as helping you
get rich! But of course, point 2 is "maintain fair, orderly, and efficient
markets," and point 1 is "protect investors".

------
Tepix
Is this truly a ban on all ICOs, i.e. the technology? Is there a decent
translation of the report at
[http://www.pbc.gov.cn/goutongjiaoliu/113456/113469/3374222/](http://www.pbc.gov.cn/goutongjiaoliu/113456/113469/3374222/)
?

I don't see why projects such as "useless etherum token"
[https://uetoken.com/](https://uetoken.com/) should be banned.

You may want to ban trading the token to prevent money laundering but that
would apply to all crypto coins.

~~~
unkown-unknowns
> [https://uetoken.com/](https://uetoken.com/)

Did they actually do an "ICO" or was it showing as "finished" from the get-go?

Let's find out!

 _30 seconds later._

[https://web.archive.org/web/20170627123240/https://uetoken.c...](https://web.archive.org/web/20170627123240/https://uetoken.com/)

[https://etherchain.org/account/0xbe5c1c298d0088886146a906cdf...](https://etherchain.org/account/0xbe5c1c298d0088886146a906cdfd83539a8cc0ad)

So they did but apparently nobody sent them any money, unless they also used
some other addresses.

 _Another 60 seconds after that._

Actually they have a link on the current
[https://uetoken.com](https://uetoken.com) leading to
[https://etherchain.org/account/0xbe5c1c298d0088886146a906cdf...](https://etherchain.org/account/0xbe5c1c298d0088886146a906cdfd83539a8cc0ad)
with 23562 txns total at the moment. Wonder if any of it was legit and if he
got any money out of it.

~~~
Tepix
I think he got around $90,000 USD out of it.

~~~
tim333
$62750 according to his twitter
[https://twitter.com/uetoken?lang=en](https://twitter.com/uetoken?lang=en)

------
oskarth
Lots of people dislike ICOs, some for good reasons. But ICOs is a general
mechanism and the specifics differ. Are some ICOs ponzi schemes? Sure. But
this move is about capital controls, little else. I am surprised so many
people are defending this as a good thing. Do you want to outlaw all VC money
too?

------
PaulMest
I hold many assets in this space including ETH and NEO. There are tons of
scams and money grabs with ICOs. While this announcement has been pretty
brutal for me, I think it is ultimately a good thing for the industry as a
whole.

I think ICOs can be extremely beneficial for teams to raise money. But a lot
of people buying these tokens do not understand what they're getting in
return. I'd like to see it become easier to actually own equity or a % of a
company's revenue by holding tokens. Hopefully these future regulations will
build trust in the ecosystem by minimizing scams and providing clarity. More
trust yields more people converting fiat -> crypto... which should yield a
healthier less volatile ecosystem.

~~~
doktrin
> I hold many assets in this space including ETH and NEO. There are tons of
> scams and money grabs with ICOs.

Case in point, NEO is probably one of the scammiest so-called "crypto"
offerings out there

~~~
robotmay
How so? It has a lot of ties to industry already, good development, and plenty
of evidence of delivering on their roadmap. That's already better than most
crypto-currencies.

~~~
doktrin
> It has a lot of ties to industry already

Like what? Every partnership or "tie" that I've ever heard of ends up being a
rumor bordering on outright falsehood - like Microsoft (x2). 2 out of 3 ICOs
they had announced prior to the ban ended up being delayed by 6 months or
more, quite likely due to platform immaturity.

> good development

For an alpha / early stage crypto project, maybe. However they lack all the
features that NEO actually brags about and the codebase is an untestable C#
mess where core modules are more or less opaque to everyone but the main
developer. It's a security nightmare waiting to happen, and a usability
nightmare in the moment : building & publishing the simplest dapp on the
platform is basically a non starter right now.

> plenty of evidence of delivering on their roadmap

Again, like what? The platform doesn't actually _do_ anything yet. It
basically consists of a few centralized servers and a centrally mined (and
centrally owned) token. They're nowhere close to even delivering on dBFT
itself, let alone high-concept stuff like mapping physical goods to a "digital
identity".

> That's already better than most crypto-currencies.

Not if you compare it to other "currencies" in anything close to the same
price range. Its valuation is far and away driven by clever marketing and
uninformed speculation.

------
bertil
It probably has a lot more to do with the country regulating its own fiat
currency, foreign change and savings quite aggressively. That made any
previously unregulated (because new) alternative the _de facto_ change
mechanism.

~~~
Jedi72
This is one of the things about bitcoin nobody has ever explained to me
adequately. Governments use monetary policy & other economic tools to regulate
the economy. Assuming we're all Keynsians here, this is a pretty important
feature that govts will not give up, so how is Bitcoin ever supposed to
supplant fiat currency?

~~~
simias
I think many of the Bitcoin fans[1] are also in favor of the gold standard.
They don't want the government to be able to "print money".

Actually I just noticed that the Wikipedia page on the gold standard has a
section about bitcoin:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard#Gold_standard_an...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard#Gold_standard_and_Bitcoin)

[1] At those who bother to think about the long term economic consequences of
Bitcoin instead of just trying to Get Rich Quick.

~~~
namelost
I'd disagree. What Bitcoin fans want is "digital gold", not the gold standard.

The gold standard is a system where paper currency is backed by a guarantee
that it is redeemable for a given amount of gold. Of course the govt can
rescind this promise at any time.

What Bitcoin fans want is something more akin to gold coins, where the value
of the currency is independent of any state.

~~~
simias
Fair enough, but effectively it has the same economical implications as the
gold standard, except maybe made stronger by the fact that the government
can't do anything at all to change the way it works, doesn't it?

I think the pro and cons of the gold standard (as listed by Wikipedia) seem to
apply fairly well to the Bitcoin economy.

------
chvid
As far as I understand financial regulation ICOs are illegal in most
countries. It is just a matter of enforcing the existing rules.

------
tudorconstantin
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.

~~~
ezVoodoo
Interesting! Why the US government punishes trading drugs with my own money? I
mean that is my lawfully earned money! Why? Why? Why?

~~~
sametmax
Precisely. The fact something is yours is irrelevant. If it's your gun, i
still want the state to make it illegal to shoot your kids with it.

~~~
rothbardrand
Did you just morally equate investing in a failed startups with shooting kids?

~~~
cloakandswagger
Reductio ad absurdum seems to be the statists' argument of choice.

While all but the most radical libertarians will concede that some level of
regulation is required, nearly every collectivist I talk to implies that
permitting any level of individual human agency would turn the world into a
Mad Max hellscape.

------
DigitalSea
This was a needed move. Too many scamcoins are appearing and selling their
overpriced offerings. It's like Kickstarter, but for larger sums of money and
less accountability if things don't materialise. We are heading for a pretty
serious ICO bubble if ICO's can continue to operate like they are and I can
only hope that the USA follows suit next.

The crypto markets right now are in a free fall as a result of the panic. This
is a ban on ICO's, not a ban on cryptocurrency. People don't realise how
instrumental China is in the crypto world, quite crazy. I am taking this
opportunity to buy up promising alt coins like TenX ($pay) which are all
incredibly unvervalued right now as a result of the drop.

As we learned with Bitcoin, panic is temporary and eventually things will
bounce back. We are entering a brave new world with cryptocoins as they reach
the mainstream.

~~~
return0
> This was a needed move.

> We are entering a brave new world with cryptocoins as they reach the
> mainstream.

You can't have both. decide

~~~
DigitalSea
I'm confused. They both relate to each other, don't they? For crypto to reach
and be accepted by the mainstream, people need to know that everything is
being done to prevent people from being scammed. It's surprisingly easy to
fork an existing cryptocurrency and create your own. Anyone could create a new
coin in a couple of hours, most of the time spent on the marketing site. For
crypto to be accepted beyond speculators and Twitter investors, there needs to
be protections in place, just like investing in the stock market is regulated
somewhat.

~~~
return0
All that and more is provided by conventional physical and digital money.

------
casualwasher
It's an necessary move to take, given there are just so many scams under the
cover of ICO. So few innovations, so many ponzi schemes.

------
crypt1d
A lot of people seem to suggest that some kind of regulation, or even outright
ban, of ICOs is necessary. Apparently in order to prevent people from loosing
their money on risky investments?

I don't really understand why it is appropriate for someone else to tell me
how to spend my hard earned money? Isn't that what freedom of choice is about?
Even if I'm being manipulated into a scam, it is still MY choice.

Let people spend their ICO money the way they spend their votes. Its basically
the same form of manipulation anyway.

~~~
omarchowdhury
If you're being manipulated into a scam, it's not your really your choice, you
are not consenting to being scammed, you are consenting to whatever
proposition made sense to you on the surface, but was not going to hold up due
to withheld information from the recipient of your money. Nobody volunteers or
makes a choice to be scammed.

~~~
patrickaljord
Not all ICOs are scams. Isn't freedom also the freedom to make you own
mistakes? I mean, if we were to use your logic for any decisions that may lead
to bad outcomes, we would live in a totalitarian state.

~~~
owebmaster
I think we already live in a totalitarian state because of the "freedom" to
make your own mistake (aka be scammed by someone with more information and bad
intentions, aka "the market").

------
logicallee
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](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15121111)

>May I ask what the largest/most successful "traditional" tech company that
used an ICO is? By "traditional" I mean that their tech has nothing to do with
blockchains and they could have also just raised money on angellist, and today
are just a normal tech company shipping some kind of a product, like a
hoverboard.

Here was their response which I'll quote:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15121451](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15121451)

>This is early days, very early days. Give it a few years, and people won't
bat an eye at raising capital via the blockchain. It's just more efficient and
easier. I mean, if you like having to travel around, having tons of meetings
and discussions, hoping your lead investor doesn't pull out and fuck up the
whole round, by all means keep supporting the current system. It just is going
to change, massively, in the coming years. There will be some sort of place
for traditional capital but blockchain capital raising will hit every
industry.

If you think about it, that response to my question really says it all.

(Upon my folowup, they did name two software companies.)

~~~
omarchowdhury
[https://science.tokenhub.com/](https://science.tokenhub.com/)

~~~
logicallee
I looked at that webpage. About halfway down the page there is a "Latest Media
Coverage" section: [http://imgur.com/a/pCXCm](http://imgur.com/a/pCXCm)

I tried to click on the Forbes, TechCrunch, recode, and Adweek links, but
actually they're not links; that section is empty. The empty section is
included to imply that there has been media coverage by these sources (or any
other ones), but it is just an inactive placeholder that uses their greyed-out
logos without permission to imply some kind of coverage. Clicking anywhere in
that empty section does nothing.

Why does the page include an empty "latest media coverage" section that is
completely empty (but includes famous news brand logos)? You and I both know
why - it's obvious.

That _might_ be fine for companies that are bootstrapping their own future:
"imagine if we had something here." But this is why I didn't ask about such
companies, but instead about companies that already have done that
bootstrapping.

A lot of money has traded hands in ICO's. Has a single traditional tech
startup that is shipping some kind of real product (hoverboard, whatever)
totally unrelated to blockchain, been built as a result?

------
decentralised
Authoritarian governments will always act to protect their own monopoly of the
economy. That's why we need cryptos in the first place!

~~~
nannal
There's a large difference between banning ICOs and banning crypto currencies
entirely

that being said this does feel a lot like a throw back to 2014 and earlier
with "China bans bitcoin"

~~~
decentralised
With ICOs, there is a risk that people outside of the party circles actually
making enough money to question and ask for some change.

~~~
lawless123
With most ICOs there is no risk that anyone other than the persons who created
the ICO's will make money.

~~~
decentralised
If you mean that there are plenty of ICOs that are scams operated by
criminals, they yes you are probably right but regulation doesn't stop crime.

Can you actually picture in your mind a criminal preparing to do something
criminal and stopping because it's actually illegal too?

------
chinathrow
Other countries must follow. If you see what kind of ICO scams are running out
there, you can't look away any longer.

A lot of folks will lose their investment/money.

[https://twitter.com/search?q=peak%20ico&src=typd](https://twitter.com/search?q=peak%20ico&src=typd)

~~~
samsonradu
Wow, is this satire? The amount of buzzwords on that Twitter account [1] is
staggering.

[1] [https://twitter.com/LydianCoinLtd](https://twitter.com/LydianCoinLtd)

------
frrp
"ICOs need regulation, sure, but banning ICOs altogether is a huge gift to
Silicon Valley and its resident financiers." -Naval Ravikant

------
BlueZeniX
But wait, central banking is itself a scam! It's the only entity that doesn't
have to balance its books.

------
MrBlue
Buy the dip! :)

------
vit05
A lot of people already knew about that and was able to profit in the weekend.
Some coins just jumped nowhere and now will crash. Hshare has passed 1 billion
market cap and will be probably be evaluated less than 10 million at the end
of the day. Walton, Loopring, NAV...

~~~
Laforet
BTCChina's ICOCoin ($insert yo dawg joke here) stopped trading since saturday,
I think most sane investors saw this coming from a mile away.

------
encryptThrow32
About time. 'the big crash of 2017'. Some stability and sanity will return to
this space.

~~~
blunte
Wishful thinking. This will probably not, in the short term, add sanity. It
will, however, provide a buying opportunity for a week/month perhaps.

China will make some announcement in the future that softens or reverses this
one, and we'll see a spike in crypto prices.

Hopefully there will be some sane regulation (or at least guidance) on ICOs to
make it more difficult for scammy types to use ICOs as tools to bilk unsaavy
"investors" (which includes most humans).

------
grizzles
This will probably slow down the ICOs. Smuggling money out of China is one of
the main functions of crypto currencies these days. Edit: Bloomberg just
reported Bitcoin has dropped 11% on the news, so far.

------
xHopen
Keep trying and trying, It wont work. By that's none of my business

------
mehh
I'm not surprised, even some basic analysis on the ICOs such as Civic raise a
lot of alarm bells.

Will be very interested to see in the next couple of years how many of these
projects still exist.

------
rsynnott
I'm amazed it's even a case of banning them; I'd just automatically assumed
they were illegal basically everywhere. It's an unregulated securities market,
surely?

~~~
pja
Some of them are just pre-sales of whatever product the token is supposed to
be about. This sort of ICO is (probably) legal: it's just a re-invention of
the Green Stamps of the C20th.

And about as useful.

------
lsd5you
People will see the authoritarian aspect of this, but in my view the Chinese
are particularly vulnerable to financial scams for cultural reasons.

    
    
      - They have recent communist history/lack experience of crashes/associated fraud.
    
      - Traditionally they actually worship money - By burning fake money.
    
      - MLM scams are popular (at least in Taiwan).
    
      - When I watched a video by Andreas - that Bitcoin guy - the audience (in US) was disproportionately east Asian.

~~~
shubb
>> They have ... lack experience of crashes/associated fraud.

The Asian financial crisis was all these things.

~~~
PakG1
The average Chinese person did not experience this. In 1997, China was nowhere
near where it is now in terms of the average Chinese citizen's exposure to
global markets, bubbles, and crashes. Even now, their ability to invest is
supremely limited such that real estate is one of the only real investment
options, fueling a nasty bubble. One of the people I manage in Shenzhen asked
for a raise last year because they lost all their savings in a local stock
market crash. Person is about 50 years old. Scams are common. China is not
ready.

------
Focalise
Clearly a very bad move for China.

------
TomK32
And every coin (except for 5) is in the red on coinmarketcap.

------
cinquemb
Unless fiscal policy of global CB's includes halting of QE-like initiatives
and/or raising historically low interest rates, we're only going to see more
of the same, regardless of legalities.

------
cryptoperative
What effect will this have on ETH price?

~~~
bhaak
Buy the dip. Cheap coinz. HODL.

------
KasianFranks
Time to buy.

------
halicando
It's a greate decision!

------
lawless123
Necessary.

~~~
drcross
Just because you dont like something doesn't mean it should be illegal, what
ever happened to Caveat Emptor?

