The SEC has charged two initial coin offerings with defrauding investors

Re:The SEC has charged two initial coin offerings with defra... by dragonwriter on Saturday September 30, 2017 @04:06AM (#15371826)

> That's what I understood from my call with the SEC. That if anyone could reasonably expect a profit it satisfied that bullet in the Howey Test.

“reasonably expect”, in law, imposes an “objective” standard; the mere subjective expectation of a buyer won't meet it, the court applying the test will need to find that the expectation was objectively justified in the concrete circumstances that existed. It's a much higher bar than merely did any individual buyer have a subjective expectation of profit.

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Re:The SEC has charged two initial coin offerings with defra... by everdev on Saturday September 30, 2017 @10:54AM (#15373101)

I agree, the expectation has to be objectively reasonable.

If the coin has a mechanism where it can always be bought for $1 forever it's reasonable that you can't expect a profit.

But ICOs don't do this. They limit quantity to drive demand of people hoping their limited resource will be worth more in the future.

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