People were losing their shirts investing in shady companies so the government stepped in to protect people from themselves.
For this reason it won't be surprising at all when we start seeing some attempts to enact regulation.
Those examples have cleary less benefit for society then the dumbest investment strategy. Let people invest, sure tons if people will lose their shirt but they will learn from it and stay away. Everyone else in the society gets to Enjoy the increased liquidity in the society. Why does anyone think that its ok that we created this random gatekeeps in the society that block ordinary people from investing beciase they are to “stupid”. The accredited investors sheme is a fraud, the arbitrary number on 1m$ networth to be an accredited investor is a joke. Thats means that even a Business Prof. Can’t invest because the SEC deems him to be to stupid.
They also carry less risk. Few people who "lose their shirt" say "oh well, I didn't do my diligence." Instead, they blame the system. Their anger becomes political capital. Moreover, inept investment combined with leverage can decimate an economy in a way frivolous personal spending does not.
If you want to learn about why these regulations appeared, in more or less similar form, many times independently across the world, start by reading on the history of free banking, the Panic of 1907, the post World War I securities market and the debates surrounding the Securities and Exchange Acts of '33 and '34.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal nor securities advice.
> They also carry less risk. Few people who "lose their shirt" say "oh well, I didn't do my diligence."
No they don't. Plenty of people lose their entire life savings in casinos, and plenty of poor people spend money on lottery tickets when they should be spending money on food.
You have not sufficiently explained how gambling is less risky than investing.
So people are going broke by the masses from buring money on shit they don’t need to impress people they hate cus advertisement told them to.
Shutting people off from investing their own money however they like is Elitist thinking!
Investor protection are about Fraud protection. NOT, because it is good or bad to spend money on something.
If you spend 2 Million dollars on a car, you are getting exactly what you were sold. If you buy a lottery ticket, you are getting exactly the odds that were promised to you.
But investments are a different story. Someone is trying to promise you that your investment will go up. They are making claims that they cannot guarantee.
That is why investments are regulated.
I challenge you to find a single ICO which says that (or something very similar) in their terms and conditions, homepage, or white/yellow papers. So far, every single one I have read about said it was a risky investment with no guaranteed return.
Now check out lottery advertisement for a different message: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/c8/95/f6/c895f66260e1517e2b2437d8a...
Casinos and the state lotteries do everything they can to convince people they will make profit. Do you think a regular Joe can calculate the expected value of a scratch card? Sure, he knows he has a 1/1,000,000 chance of winning the jackpot and a 1/25 chance of winning $20. He is being misled.
Therefore, since gambling companies are legally allowed to mislead regular people, then there is no reason to protect them from investing and maybe actually making a profit.
"The EOS Tokens do not have any rights, uses, purpose, attributes, functionalities or features, express or implied, including, without limitation, any uses, purpose, attributes, functionalities or features on the EOS Platform."
It's (almost) impossible to find words like "invest" or "investment" on ICO websites or white papers.
The only example of yours that is close to equivalent is a casino gambler, and even then, we DO heavily regulate the casino industry. It is either outright banned in many places, or there is some agency that is in charge of making sure the gambling is legit (i.e. the rate of return for a slot machine is what it is supposed to be, and isn't simply taking money)
Soviet Union famously regulated this very well. These luxury goods were only available to accredited investors aka the Party elite.
It seems to me that back then this behavior was condemned by the people of the Land of the Free.