
SEC Halts a Real Initial Coin Offering - dsri
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-12/sec-halts-a-real-initial-coin-offering
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Talyen42
Most of the SEC's concerns about ICOs are related to marketing promises
(amazing returns, we won't just steal your money and run away, etc etc.), and
justifiably so.

I'm actually impressed with how well the SEC has been able to differentiate
between legitimate cryptocurrencies and scam projects.

~~~
dzdt
I suggest you read the article. The point of it is that, in this case, the SEC
does not object to marketing promises (though they probably could have).

The SEC objects that this ICO has an investment component. That is, that it is
sold to people hoping to make money from it.

Basically they are enforcing that if there is an investment component, the
coin is a security and needs to comply with security offering law.

~~~
amarkov
It sounds like the basis for claiming this ICO has an investment component was
that Munchee made marketing promises about how much money you'd stand to gain
from participating.

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ourmandave
_The SAFT lets you sell tokens to speculative investors, without having the
tokens themselves be securities: You wrap the tokens in securities for the
speculators, and then unwrap them for the eventual users.

There are still open questions about whether and how that or other approaches
will work.

...But for a long time now, I and a lot of other people have thought that the
basic strategy of a lot of ICO issuers -- issue tokens for money, call them
"utility tokens," hype their speculative benefits, and watch the money roll in
-- was obviously illegal, and the SEC didn't seem to be paying attention. Now
we know it is._

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thisisit
Discussed earlier here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15906305](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15906305)

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elmar
For the SEC looks like there’s a clear difference between pure crypto-for-its-
value and as utility to run a network (like ETH or BTC) and tokens which are
sold in some ICO with the promise of gains in return (or shares in some
structure), even if the second kind of token also has some utility.

[https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/11/with-markets-going-
crypto-...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/11/with-markets-going-crypto-crazy-
sec-chairman-weighs-in/)

~~~
Erlich_Bachman
I'm very impressed with this stance by SEC. It's very well informed and it
reflects the practical reality and nature of those crypto tokens. They move in
to regulate what needs to be regulated (tokens susceptible to scams against
naive users), and leave what doesn't need to be regulated alone.

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lgats
good job SEC.

~~~
jstanley
Yes, thanks SEC for preventing free people from entering into voluntary
transactions.

~~~
throwaway613834
> Yes, thanks SEC for preventing free people from entering into voluntary
> transactions.

Allowing free people to enter into whatever voluntary transactions they would
like is basically the definition of anarchism. It's surprising to see people
advocating for anarchism on HN this often, especially in obscured fashions
like this rather than explicitly. Anarchy was never the vision for our society
and is not generally seen as a desirable end goal.

[Edited for clarity.]

~~~
mindcrime
_Anarchy was never the vision for our society and is not generally seen as a
desirable end goal._

According to who? There are two or three of us who absolutely see anarchy as a
desirable end goal. In the case of a lot of hackers, it's more specifically
"anarcho-capitalism" or "voluntaryism" as opposed to what a lot of people call
anarchy (what I'd probably call left-anarchism or socialist anarchism). But
anarchy of a sort nonetheless.

~~~
throwaway613834
>> is not generally seen as a desirable end goal.

> According to who? There are two or three of us who absolutely see anarchy as
> a desirable end goal

2-3 people? What claim are you even contesting? I said it's _not generally
seen as desirable_ , not that _there exists nobody on this planet who sees it
as desirable_. Are you somehow under the the US population is generally
anarchist?

~~~
mindcrime
Sorry, I though the intentional hyperbole there was completely obvious, but it
looks like you read that dead-pan / literal. Never mind, I don't have time to
invest in this right now.

