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Comment by crypt1d | Hacker News Reader

A lot of people seem to suggest that some kind of regulation, or even outright ban, of ICOs is necessary. Apparently in order to prevent people from loosing their money on risky investments?

I don't really understand why it is appropriate for someone else to tell me how to spend my hard earned money? Isn't that what freedom of choice is about? Even if I'm being manipulated into a scam, it is still MY choice.

Let people spend their ICO money the way they spend their votes. Its basically the same form of manipulation anyway.

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If you're being manipulated into a scam, it's not your really your choice, you are not consenting to being scammed, you are consenting to whatever proposition made sense to you on the surface, but was not going to hold up due to withheld information from the recipient of your money. Nobody volunteers or makes a choice to be scammed.

Not all ICOs are scams. Isn't freedom also the freedom to make you own mistakes? I mean, if we were to use your logic for any decisions that may lead to bad outcomes, we would live in a totalitarian state.

I think we already live in a totalitarian state because of the "freedom" to make your own mistake (aka be scammed by someone with more information and bad intentions, aka "the market").

I am making a choice to believe them that it is not a scam. You can only know if their statement was true or not after the fact.

We all make choices like this daily on regular basis. However, its apparently appropriate to be scammed into various political promises, product descriptions, etc. But its not okay to be part of this 'ICO lottery' because one can easily be scammed? Give me a break.

They don't ban you from spending your money. They ban companies from receiving your money. Companies that are malignant and consumers should be protected from.

This is not a new concept. The same regulations apply if you start telling your friends that you're smart and that they should let you manage their money for them.

> This is not a new concept. The same regulations apply if you start telling your friends that you're smart and that they should let you manage their money for them.

u mean like a 'friends and family' investment round? ;)

You don't understand why this community is butthurt over the way ICOs work, they're getting a very bad deal with the traditional investing route, so they're furious over other people getting great deals, calling all the projects a scam and celebrating government influence...

Very good HN very good.

Many believe common people do not know what's good for them and that it's ok for special groups of people (governments) to impose their choices by force on the common people for their own good.

Because lots of them look like outright scams and are fueling a bubble which is bad for everyone because they cause negative externalities [1] such as systematic risk [2].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality#Negative

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

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