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Nope, HN can just see when a 'crowdfunding' system is designed to support scammers. For fucks sake, even kickstarter etc is full of scams that never deliver -

Nope, HN can just see when a 'crowdfunding' system is designed to support scammers. For fucks sake, even kickstarter etc is full of scams that never deliver - and they work within a legal system, with clear lines of identity and responsibility, and build things that are much easier to understand ahead of the time. It's obvious that the ICO buyers are half clueless people who can't evaluate the risks, and half folks exploiting the former by buying early and trying to flip the tokens once the market opens up. Sure, there's certainly some teams that are trying to build legit things with ICOs. But when you have two funding systems, where one is completely open, and the other requires certain guarantees (identity, legal responsibility), the first is always going to be full of scammers.

ckastner 9y ago
> But when you have two funding systems, where one is completely open, and the other requires certain guarantees (identity, legal responsibility), the first is always going to be full of scammers. Exactly. It always cracks me up when people tout the completely deregulated nature of cryptocurrencies as a good thing.
- drdeca 9y ago
  > It always cracks me up when people tout the completely deregulated nature of cryptocurrencies as a good thing. Well, I'll acknowledge that there are real downsides, but I think it might be feasible to (over time) build opt-in layers on top of the existing layers which serve some of the same purposes as some regulations and handle some of those issues. States are good and important and all, but if we can build something that makes some of the roles of the state unnecessary/redundant, that would be cool I think. I don't know, maybe this is largely an aesthetic preference?
  - ckastner 9y ago
    Just to be clear: I wasn't making an argument in favor of states, merely in favor of a regulating body. Some industries already self-regulate precisely to preempt regulation by a government agency, as in: "we're well-behaved amongst the rules we made for ourselves, so please don't step in and start making rules we cannot control".

ckastner 9y ago

> But when you have two funding systems, where one is completely open, and the other requires certain guarantees (identity, legal responsibility), the first is always going to be full of scammers. Exactly. It always cracks me up when people tout the completely deregulated nature of cryptocurrencies as a good thing.

drdeca 9y ago
> It always cracks me up when people tout the completely deregulated nature of cryptocurrencies as a good thing. Well, I'll acknowledge that there are real downsides, but I think it might be feasible to (over time) build opt-in layers on top of the existing layers which serve some of the same purposes as some regulations and handle some of those issues. States are good and important and all, but if we can build something that makes some of the roles of the state unnecessary/redundant, that would be cool I think. I don't know, maybe this is largely an aesthetic preference?
- ckastner 9y ago
  Just to be clear: I wasn't making an argument in favor of states, merely in favor of a regulating body. Some industries already self-regulate precisely to preempt regulation by a government agency, as in: "we're well-behaved amongst the rules we made for ourselves, so please don't step in and start making rules we cannot control".