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Alternative: telegram launches anyway, and the SEC does... what exactly? Bans them from being traded on US exchanges? It would be impossible to stop the softwar

Alternative: telegram launches anyway, and the SEC does... what exactly? Bans them from being traded on US exchanges? It would be impossible to stop the software, just as they can’t stop bitcoin.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> telegram launches anyway, and the SEC does... what exactly? Refers Telegram to the DoJ for criminal prosecution, which results in bank accounts being frozen, any SAFT holders (or anyone else) who sold their Grams being on the hook to the buyers, and the seizure of Telegram’s assets in America and anywhere else with a mutual prosecution treaty, which covers much of the EU. At the point of wilfully defying a court order to sell securities, it becomes fraud and potentially money laundering.
- seibelj 7y ago
  But these are foreign corporations? I think I’m confused about how Russians, with offshore corporations, and foreign bank accounts, can suddenly be banhammered by the SEC...
  - davidgerard 7y ago
    Where are the two corporations that substantially control your app being on phones located?
    - seibelj 7y ago
      Ok so the SEC order really has teeth because they can use it to pressure Apple and google to remove telegram from their app stores? That’s a significantly less impressive penalty than what Internet lawyers have been telling me.
      - nl 7y ago
        There's a few other obvious things: They can sanction individual directors (ban them from holding office in any US corporation) They can freeze any US assets They can ban any US companies transacting with them
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - negamax 7y ago
    Why do you think they are so keen to list in US?
  - jVinc 7y ago
    You are right that they could conceptually have been operating entirely outside the US, which would shield them from any SEC actions... but of cause they aren't operating entirely outside of the US, and as such are not in any meaningful way shielded from SEC actions.
    - bredren 7y ago
      Their people could get arrested while vacationing here.
  - PeterisP 7y ago
    Telegram was implemented in Berlin and now is domiciled in UK; most of their operations, money and people are fully within reach of the western judicial system. While Durov comes from Russia, he is in exile and Telegram is structured to keep their money and people out of the reach of the Russian judicial system for various reasons. Also, a big part of their target audience of Gram early holders is in USA, so they also obviously care about the legality of these transactions. For them it's not sufficient to have some technical workaround that enables them to sell the tokens they have, they need a solution that allows them to do so legally.
    - ryanlol 7y ago
      >Telegram was implemented in Berlin Why are you spreading this lie? It’s very well known by now that Telegram was primarily developed in St. Petersburg, in a building shared with VKontakte. https://twitter.com/bershidsky/status/910169626989953024 https://twitter.com/bershidsky/status/910169626989953024 https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/910186197598838784 https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/910186197598838784 https://theoutline.com/post/2348/what-isn-t-telegram-saying-about-its-connections-to-the-kremlin https://theoutline.com/post/2348/what-isn-t-telegram-saying-... >While Durov comes from Russia, he is in exile Durovs exile is very fleeting, normally you wouldn't visit the country you're in exile from... https://tjournal.ru/tech/52954-durov-back-in-ussr https://tjournal.ru/tech/52954-durov-back-in-ussr https://lenta.ru/news/2017/03/20/durov/ https://lenta.ru/news/2017/03/20/durov/ I should also add the obligatory note that Telegram has shipped obvious backdoors in the past allowing them to selectively decrypt secret chats https://habr.com/en/post/206900/ https://habr.com/en/post/206900/ lol @ the downvoting TON bagholders
- rolltiide 7y ago
  do eeeeeet
ThinkBeat 7y ago
That would be an interesting situation. I feel sure that the US would finds ways of shutting it down, but the idea of just going ahead with their plans and maybe block the US from their network would be legally and politically interesting to watch.
- negamax 7y ago
  But this is indeed about money. Why tie up a crypto token with a messenger otherwise. No US, no money. That's how it is. I wish SEC had fined EOS more though
justapassenger 7y ago
> It would be impossible to stop the software, just as they can’t stop bitcoin. That’s very naive approach. Just because technology is solid, doesn’t mean that government is going to give up. Remember, governments are only entities in the world that are allowed to seize all your assets, throw you in jail and sometime kill you. People in tech tend to overestimate value of technology and underestimate power of regulations and governments (I only realized it myself few years ago). I feel that we need to update this xkcd, to talk about regulations - https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
H8crilA 7y ago
But why wouldn't they register? It really sounds like trying to make this harder than it is. Isn't it true that the whole crypto world dreams of mass adoption? Well guess what - institutional money would greatly appreciate a valid S-1/F-1 filing in EDGAR.
semiotagonal 7y ago
> It would be impossible to stop the software, just as they can’t stop bitcoin. It seems impossible when you think about it for a little while, but when someone thinks long and hard about it because it's their full-time government job, maybe someone finds a way.

Alternative: telegram launches anyway, and the SEC does... what exactly? Bans them from being traded on US exchanges? It would be impossible to stop the software, just as they can’t stop bitcoin.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

> telegram launches anyway, and the SEC does... what exactly? Refers Telegram to the DoJ for criminal prosecution, which results in bank accounts being frozen, any SAFT holders (or anyone else) who sold their Grams being on the hook to the buyers, and the seizure of Telegram’s assets in America and anywhere else with a mutual prosecution treaty, which covers much of the EU. At the point of wilfully defying a court order to sell securities, it becomes fraud and potentially money laundering.

seibelj 7y ago
But these are foreign corporations? I think I’m confused about how Russians, with offshore corporations, and foreign bank accounts, can suddenly be banhammered by the SEC...
- davidgerard 7y ago
  Where are the two corporations that substantially control your app being on phones located?
  - seibelj 7y ago
    Ok so the SEC order really has teeth because they can use it to pressure Apple and google to remove telegram from their app stores? That’s a significantly less impressive penalty than what Internet lawyers have been telling me.
    - nl 7y ago
      There's a few other obvious things: They can sanction individual directors (ban them from holding office in any US corporation) They can freeze any US assets They can ban any US companies transacting with them
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- negamax 7y ago
  Why do you think they are so keen to list in US?
- jVinc 7y ago
  You are right that they could conceptually have been operating entirely outside the US, which would shield them from any SEC actions... but of cause they aren't operating entirely outside of the US, and as such are not in any meaningful way shielded from SEC actions.
  - bredren 7y ago
    Their people could get arrested while vacationing here.
- PeterisP 7y ago
  Telegram was implemented in Berlin and now is domiciled in UK; most of their operations, money and people are fully within reach of the western judicial system. While Durov comes from Russia, he is in exile and Telegram is structured to keep their money and people out of the reach of the Russian judicial system for various reasons. Also, a big part of their target audience of Gram early holders is in USA, so they also obviously care about the legality of these transactions. For them it's not sufficient to have some technical workaround that enables them to sell the tokens they have, they need a solution that allows them to do so legally.
  - ryanlol 7y ago
    >Telegram was implemented in Berlin Why are you spreading this lie? It’s very well known by now that Telegram was primarily developed in St. Petersburg, in a building shared with VKontakte. https://twitter.com/bershidsky/status/910169626989953024 https://twitter.com/bershidsky/status/910169626989953024 https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/910186197598838784 https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/910186197598838784 https://theoutline.com/post/2348/what-isn-t-telegram-saying-about-its-connections-to-the-kremlin https://theoutline.com/post/2348/what-isn-t-telegram-saying-... >While Durov comes from Russia, he is in exile Durovs exile is very fleeting, normally you wouldn't visit the country you're in exile from... https://tjournal.ru/tech/52954-durov-back-in-ussr https://tjournal.ru/tech/52954-durov-back-in-ussr https://lenta.ru/news/2017/03/20/durov/ https://lenta.ru/news/2017/03/20/durov/ I should also add the obligatory note that Telegram has shipped obvious backdoors in the past allowing them to selectively decrypt secret chats https://habr.com/en/post/206900/ https://habr.com/en/post/206900/ lol @ the downvoting TON bagholders
rolltiide 7y ago
do eeeeeet

ThinkBeat 7y ago

That would be an interesting situation. I feel sure that the US would finds ways of shutting it down, but the idea of just going ahead with their plans and maybe block the US from their network would be legally and politically interesting to watch.

negamax 7y ago
But this is indeed about money. Why tie up a crypto token with a messenger otherwise. No US, no money. That's how it is. I wish SEC had fined EOS more though

justapassenger 7y ago

> It would be impossible to stop the software, just as they can’t stop bitcoin. That’s very naive approach. Just because technology is solid, doesn’t mean that government is going to give up. Remember, governments are only entities in the world that are allowed to seize all your assets, throw you in jail and sometime kill you. People in tech tend to overestimate value of technology and underestimate power of regulations and governments (I only realized it myself few years ago). I feel that we need to update this xkcd, to talk about regulations - https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/

H8crilA 7y ago

But why wouldn't they register? It really sounds like trying to make this harder than it is. Isn't it true that the whole crypto world dreams of mass adoption? Well guess what - institutional money would greatly appreciate a valid S-1/F-1 filing in EDGAR.

semiotagonal 7y ago

> It would be impossible to stop the software, just as they can’t stop bitcoin. It seems impossible when you think about it for a little while, but when someone thinks long and hard about it because it's their full-time government job, maybe someone finds a way.