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Comment by generalseven | Hacker News Reader

Lazare, you said it:

"The typical ICO very obviously meets all 4 elements, inasmuch as it involves a company raising money via an ICO..."

Do we really know what a "typical ICO" is at this stage? And as fast as the sector is changing, how do we know what will be typical by the time new legislation is

(a) passed and (b) enforced?

Many (typical?) ICOs are not companies, registered as foundations to support free, open source software with crystal-clear terms of the token distribution:

Which explicitly state that it is not an investment and that it is likely that participants will lose all of their money.

This is just one exceptional example, and many more will follow.

Forward-thinking jurisdictions such as Switzerland which understand and actively support ICOs are quickly developing a strong competitive advantage against the more regressive ones.

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> Do we really know what a "typical ICO" is at this stage?

Yes, we can look at the ICOs that have happened and draw conclusions.

> And as fast as the sector is changing, how do we know what will be typical by the time new legislation is (a) passed

This isn't about new legislation. The Howey Test dates from 1946. The fundamental characteristics of ICOs are not new (and have nothing to do with blockchains).

> Many (typical?) ICOs are not companies

I have no idea why you think this changes anything. It doesn't.

> Which explicitly state that it is not an investment

As I already mentioned, fine print doesn't fix the problems being discussed here.

Lazare,

You've selectively skipped over critical parts of my argu ment. But never mind... ;)

From your perspective, even in-game virtual limited-edition collectors items that might appreciate in value could be considered "securities". As would limited edition digital art work or, let's say, protected hashes of such works.

Or a limited gift voucher to purchase the first edition of a product funded by Kickstarter....

Basically you can try to draw conclusions of what a typical token crowd sale is or isn't at this stage, but -- at least in my view -- you would probably be jumping to a superficial conclusion.

> This isn't about new legislation. The Howey Test dates from 1946.

Which may or may not be suitable for technology developed and used in 2017, let alone 2018, 2019 or further down the road. So you're completely missing the point.

But if your only argument is that government authorities "could" interpret the law in the most aggressive way, few would argue.

> even in-game virtual limited-edition collectors items that might appreciate in value could be considered "securities"

If they were being marketed as an investment, yes, of course. "Buy a limited edition Golden Sword so we can launch our new expansion; you'll make a huge profit when you resell it to the people who join after we ship the expansion!"

That would fairly clearly fall afoul of the SEC; they don't care if you call it a "Golden Sword" or an "no-lose investment contract"; they care about how it behaves and (especially) marketed by the promoters. Scammers are constantly looking for new ways to package the same old schemes.

And because it would be so clearly illegal, no legit game company does that. Similarly, Kickstarter will shut down a project in a heartbeat if they even hint at doing something shady with the promotion. Did it ever occur to you that there's a reason why your examples of other equivalent things that would also be prosecuted by the SEC are all hypothetical? It's because if they existed, they'd be prosecuted by the SEC.

> Which may or may not be suitable for technology developed and used in 2017

But is undeniably applied to the technology used in 2017. This is like Zenefits arguing that laws about insurance brokers are totally not relevant to the new internet-enabled 21st century. Turns out, those laws were very relevant to Zenefits.

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