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Maybe we're defining 'scam' differently. I take it to mean a premeditated act of defrauding people by embezzling funds that were received under the pretenses of
by CryptoPunk 9y ago
Maybe we're defining 'scam' differently. I take it to mean a premeditated act of defrauding people by embezzling funds that were received under the pretenses of being spent on development.
I think 90% of projects are poorly planned and reckless expenditures of capital, and will fail. But none of those qualities make them scams. The people organizing said token sales will destroy their own reputation, and no amount of money is worth a person's reputation. A portion of these people will end up attempting to run away with the cryptocurrency they received from investors, and these people, and only these people, should be pursued by legal authorities.
In terms of regulations, I wouldn't mind some generic disclosure requirements for token sale websites, like a simple warning about the highly experimental nature of cryptocurrency and speculative nature of investments in them, but a blanket ban, or a blanket prior restraint type restriction on anything unregistered and unapproved by a centralized gatekeeper? It would be terrible for basic internet rights IMHO, will create a largely counterproductive witch hunt against token sale promoters that will push them further underground where they're less accountable, and will prevent innovation that will produce orders of magnitude more value than the value lost on poor token investments.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago> Maybe we're defining 'scam' differently. I take it to mean a premeditated act of defrauding people by embezzling funds that were received under the pretenses of being spent on development. I think we defining it in the same way. It's just that I don't believe that 90%+ of ICO's I've seen are "poorly planned" projects. I believe they're cases of asking people for money with no intention whatsoever to deliver anything in exchange. But yeah, come to think of it, you're right that outright ban is a stupid idea. A better one would be to tighten up regulatory scrutiny a little bit, putting just enough barriers to discourage casual scammers. You're right it's worth to have this experiment in the open, and to see what good things can come out of it.
- CryptoPunk 9y agoI haven't seen any evidence of mass intention to defraud. Are you just speculating or is there some evidence you can link me to? If someone intends to run away with the cryptocurrency, they've already decided to break the law, with or without regulations. So I don't think adding regulations will dissuade them. I think instead of putting up some kind blanket barrier to entry, which ultimately centralizes an industry, a better track would be to put more resources into enforcing basic fraud laws, to deter would be criminals. Criminals have been putting ads to phishing sites mimicking www.myetherwallet.com on Google for two years. Surely these people can be tracked down.