5 ms·

Innocent beginnings? It sounds exactly like he planned to commit securities fraud by preying on one of the world's most vulnerable populations. And if what comm

Innocent beginnings? It sounds exactly like he planned to commit securities fraud by preying on one of the world's most vulnerable populations. And if what commenters below are saying is correct, that he continued to move money around even after being directly ordered not to by the SEC, he is a particularly stupid and/or arrogant con man. The only possibilities cryptocurrency has ushered in are new ways to scam people. Or rather, digital versions of old scams. Involvement in cryptocurrency should be prima facie evidence of fraud.

darawk 7y ago
> Innocent beginnings? It sounds exactly like he planned to commit securities fraud by preying on one of the world's most vulnerable populations What sounds like securities fraud about that original idea?
- LiquidSky 7y ago
  >sell shares reflecting the US stock market. The idea was to globalize investing by tokenizing shares. If it's not immediately apparent that this means the sale of unregistered securities, I'm not sure what to say. The SEC would seem to agree.
  - darawk 7y ago
    Which part of that is fraud?
    - TylerE 7y ago
      All of it?
      - darawk 7y ago
        You think that selling an unregistered security is fraud?
        TylerE 7y ago
        I think the kind of people who sell unregistered securities are fraudsters.
        darawk 7y ago
        Except selling unregistered securities is not fraud. Which is why I asked "Which part of that is fraud?".
- arcticbull 7y ago
  The reasons folks would or would not be able to trade is: (0) Having money to invest. (1) Access to the internet. (2) Being able to afford the transaction fee. (3) Being on a list of people who can't trade like OFAC or failing AML/KYC, or being underage. The only one blockchain addresses is (3): granting access to people who aren't permitted to trade. Every single other thing is either a social problem, already a solved problem or can easily be addressed without the magic of the blockchain.
  - darawk 7y ago
    Or being someone without access to a bank account, or without proper means of identifying yourself. Which applies to a substantial number of people in Africa.
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      Are you sure? How much do you know about banking in Africa? I know that I personally don't know much, which is why I don't offer solutions -- but what I do know is that services like Flutterwave and M-Pesa [2] are absolutely killing it. [1] https://money.cnn.com/2017/07/31/technology/business/flutterwave-africa/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2017/07/31/technology/business/flutter... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/tobyshapshak/2018/11/27/how-mobile-money-continues-to-boom-in-africa/#69317ca8205c https://www.forbes.com/sites/tobyshapshak/2018/11/27/how-mob...
      - darawk 7y ago
        Those businesses are succeeding exactly because of the lack of banking/identification access in Africa. They use phones as the axis of identity, which people do have (somewhat) ubiquitous access to. However that doesn't make it easy to access the US stock market, which is why this guy's concept would have been useful to them.
        arcticbull 7y ago
        You can't access the US stock market without SEC regulation thanks to the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. No amount of blockchain is going to change that.

darawk 7y ago

> Innocent beginnings? It sounds exactly like he planned to commit securities fraud by preying on one of the world's most vulnerable populations What sounds like securities fraud about that original idea?

LiquidSky 7y ago
>sell shares reflecting the US stock market. The idea was to globalize investing by tokenizing shares. If it's not immediately apparent that this means the sale of unregistered securities, I'm not sure what to say. The SEC would seem to agree.
- darawk 7y ago
  Which part of that is fraud?
  - TylerE 7y ago
    All of it?
    - darawk 7y ago
      You think that selling an unregistered security is fraud?
      - TylerE 7y ago
        I think the kind of people who sell unregistered securities are fraudsters.
        darawk 7y ago
        Except selling unregistered securities is not fraud. Which is why I asked "Which part of that is fraud?".
arcticbull 7y ago
The reasons folks would or would not be able to trade is: (0) Having money to invest. (1) Access to the internet. (2) Being able to afford the transaction fee. (3) Being on a list of people who can't trade like OFAC or failing AML/KYC, or being underage. The only one blockchain addresses is (3): granting access to people who aren't permitted to trade. Every single other thing is either a social problem, already a solved problem or can easily be addressed without the magic of the blockchain.
- darawk 7y ago
  Or being someone without access to a bank account, or without proper means of identifying yourself. Which applies to a substantial number of people in Africa.
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    Are you sure? How much do you know about banking in Africa? I know that I personally don't know much, which is why I don't offer solutions -- but what I do know is that services like Flutterwave and M-Pesa [2] are absolutely killing it. [1] https://money.cnn.com/2017/07/31/technology/business/flutterwave-africa/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2017/07/31/technology/business/flutter... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/tobyshapshak/2018/11/27/how-mobile-money-continues-to-boom-in-africa/#69317ca8205c https://www.forbes.com/sites/tobyshapshak/2018/11/27/how-mob...
    - darawk 7y ago
      Those businesses are succeeding exactly because of the lack of banking/identification access in Africa. They use phones as the axis of identity, which people do have (somewhat) ubiquitous access to. However that doesn't make it easy to access the US stock market, which is why this guy's concept would have been useful to them.
      - arcticbull 7y ago
        You can't access the US stock market without SEC regulation thanks to the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. No amount of blockchain is going to change that.