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I have a (not very well supported) prediction that Filecoin will be the first ICO company to incur the wrath of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Last mo

by Lon7 9y ago

I have a (not very well supported) prediction that Filecoin will be the first ICO company to incur the wrath of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Last month the SEC released a report [0] that said in many cases these ICO tokens can be classified as securities, and therefor going forward, could be subject to all the same laws and regulations. These are not laws you want to be breaking. This Filecoin ICO has been highly publicized, and importantly, came after the SEC's report. It doesn't matter if it all only exists on a blockchain. When the SEC decides to make an example of one of these companies it will be a bloodbath. Matt Levine has been covering this topic recently. [1] [0] https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2017-131 https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2017-131 [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-07-26/tokens-vaults-ties-and-taxes https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-07-26/tokens-va...

problems 9y ago
They've done their best to abide by SEC guidelines here - they've only sold to accredited investors by US standards and placed a lot of KYC/AML restrictions on it. Now, I'm not sure if that'll be enough or if they'll be held responsible for the secondary markets which will surely pop up once it's released.
rficcaglia 9y ago
scrutiny surely, but since they only accepted accredited investors, and likely under 100 of those, probably would not run afoul of regulations. though as someone in the DC cognoscneti told me once, any Fed prosecutor can make a career by going after a high profile target - win, lose or draw
detaro 9y ago
Filecoin seems at the top end of the scale when it comes to following these regulations (from my laymans perspective), e.g. only selling to accredited investors. I guess attacking them would make it even clearer that all ICOs are a potential target, but there are going to be a lot of targets in clearer violation of the rules.

by Lon7 9y ago

problems 9y ago

They've done their best to abide by SEC guidelines here - they've only sold to accredited investors by US standards and placed a lot of KYC/AML restrictions on it. Now, I'm not sure if that'll be enough or if they'll be held responsible for the secondary markets which will surely pop up once it's released.

rficcaglia 9y ago

scrutiny surely, but since they only accepted accredited investors, and likely under 100 of those, probably would not run afoul of regulations. though as someone in the DC cognoscneti told me once, any Fed prosecutor can make a career by going after a high profile target - win, lose or draw

detaro 9y ago

Filecoin seems at the top end of the scale when it comes to following these regulations (from my laymans perspective), e.g. only selling to accredited investors. I guess attacking them would make it even clearer that all ICOs are a potential target, but there are going to be a lot of targets in clearer violation of the rules.