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A comment on SEC tightens the noose on ICO-funded startups. Parent comment

Re:SEC tightens the noose on ICO-funded startups by wpietri on Thursday October 11, 2018 @06:47AM (#18192356)
If the analogy you're drawing is mp3s to money, it's not a good one. Money has been digital much longer than music; SWIFT was formed in 1973. [1] The MICR E13B font, the machine-readable numbers seen at the bottom of every check, was adopted as a standard in 1958. [2]

Further, since cryptocurrency's use in actual commerce is a rounding error, I don't think cryptocurrencies are even at the mp3 level yet. To be useful to most people, cryptocurrencies need to be turned into real money, which makes enforcement easy enough. It's especially easy here, in that ICOs are big public launches.

Really, anything taking significant amounts of money from non-accredited investors needs to be quite public, because individually they don't have much money. Which again, makes enforcement easy. And also makes it clearly under the domain of the SEC unless they are careful to exclude American investors.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Worldwide_Interban...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_ink_character_recogni...

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Re:SEC tightens the noose on ICO-funded startups by CryptoPunk on Thursday October 11, 2018 @07:08AM (#18192451)
No I was making a more general point: that technology can fundamentally and irreversibly change the relationship between people and the government, resulting in certain classes of laws becoming easier or harder to enforce.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:SEC tightens the noose on ICO-funded startups by wpietri on Thursday October 11, 2018 @01:12PM (#18195231)
Did this general point have some relevance to the discussion? If not, I would like to take this opportunity to point out that water is generally wet, and that food can fundamentally taste good.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:SEC tightens the noose on ICO-funded startups by CryptoPunk on Thursday October 11, 2018 @02:22PM (#18195843)
It's directly relevant to your point that technology has a honeymoon period of being exempt from the rules before the rules adapt to reimpose the previously in place controls. I was saying that's not the universal progression.
[ Parent | on HN ]