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A slightly more optimistic take is that it's legal to offer this investment opportunity to non-millionaires. You have two choices: 1) Don't solicit publicly (i

A slightly more optimistic take is that it's legal to offer this investment opportunity to non-millionaires. You have two choices: 1) Don't solicit publicly (i.e. don't make a business out of convincing non-affiliated retail investors to invest in Bitcoin; you can still band along with friends, family, and fools in a non-scalable fashion) 2) Do solicit publicly, but go through the disclosures-and-compliance process that society has decided should gate scalable access to retail investors' life savings The cryptocurrency economy is largely unwilling to do #2, which is onerous, expensive, and (ahem) exceedingly difficult to get through if you have produced nothing of economic substance.

modeless 8y ago
No, it's not legal to offer this investment opportunity to non-millionaires, as the SEC has closed off your option #2. There have been several very serious efforts at regulatory compliance, involving big players in traditional finance, that have been rebuffed. Bitcoin index funds are not allowed to do public offerings right now, no matter how much compliance and disclosure they do. Not that I think it would be a great idea for anyone to sink their life savings into Bitcoin right now, but I think the SEC could do their job protecting investors without literally creating a 2-class system of rich privileged people and restricted poor people. For example, they could set limits on the percentage of your income or net worth you could invest in risky opportunities. That would allow people of all income levels to participate.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > it's not legal to offer this investment opportunity to non-millionaires right now Bitcoin futures are legal. The principal issue ETF sponsors are running into is constructing an index. The SEC isn't thrilled with indices referencing trades on e.g. Bitfinex.
  - modeless 8y ago
    We're not talking about Bitcoin futures. The investment opportunity under discussion here is an index fund.
hyprCoin 8y ago
A slightly more pessimistic view is that the rich part of society have engaged in regulatory capture to control the most profitable genesis events for their own mutual self interests. Looks a lot like class warfare on the poor/middle class and intelligent.

modeless 8y ago

No, it's not legal to offer this investment opportunity to non-millionaires, as the SEC has closed off your option #2. There have been several very serious efforts at regulatory compliance, involving big players in traditional finance, that have been rebuffed. Bitcoin index funds are not allowed to do public offerings right now, no matter how much compliance and disclosure they do. Not that I think it would be a great idea for anyone to sink their life savings into Bitcoin right now, but I think the SEC could do their job protecting investors without literally creating a 2-class system of rich privileged people and restricted poor people. For example, they could set limits on the percentage of your income or net worth you could invest in risky opportunities. That would allow people of all income levels to participate.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> it's not legal to offer this investment opportunity to non-millionaires right now Bitcoin futures are legal. The principal issue ETF sponsors are running into is constructing an index. The SEC isn't thrilled with indices referencing trades on e.g. Bitfinex.
- modeless 8y ago
  We're not talking about Bitcoin futures. The investment opportunity under discussion here is an index fund.

hyprCoin 8y ago

A slightly more pessimistic view is that the rich part of society have engaged in regulatory capture to control the most profitable genesis events for their own mutual self interests. Looks a lot like class warfare on the poor/middle class and intelligent.