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Comment by wmf | Hacker News Reader

The SEC is still working on the crypto scams of 2018-2019.

One problem with this narrative is that they managed to kill off Kik/Kin and Telegram TON before they launched but they let other pump and dumps play out. Clearly it's possible for the SEC to do their job effectively but they just aren't doing it.

(Not to mention Libra/Diem which was an outlier.)

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> that they managed to kill off Kik/Kin and Telegram TON before they launched

Going by this[1] SEC complaint from 2019 Kik had already illegally sold $55 million worth of tokens to investors in 2017. I am not sure how you can look at these dates and get a "before" out of it, especially since it seems that some sort of launch did happen.

[1] https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2019-87

Before mainnet launch, which is when the VCs and whales dump on the public.

I'm not sure what's going on with Kin specifically because they lost the SEC case in 2020 but their website makes it look like it's still happening. (If you define constantly switching blockchains as happening.)

Alternatively, the SEC can do their job but don't have the necessary tech-savvy manpower to do it enough.

Is it tech-savvy people they need? The Howey test doesn't say anything about tech or computers. I would have guessed they need finance-savvy lawyers.

I assume that you need a tech person and a lawyer to go after crypto. The lawyer lacks knowledge (and the ability to give expert testimony) of exactly how the coins work and therefore how the law can be applied. I could be wrong, I'm just extrapolating from my experience that normally the limit of tech talent and lawyers is whichever came second.

I don't follow the logic. Isn't the fact that the SEC got wise to crypto scams and started enforcing them belatedly a good thing? Better late than never, right?

From your tone it seems to me like you think the injustice here is that Kin and TON should have been allowed on the gravy train too?

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I want the SEC to shut down all crypto and I want them to shut it down as early as possible, not years after the dump. I think they are competent to do this but they're prioritizing their resources poorly.

I don't see the timing as significantly different than the linked article about the deli, though. It's a civil infraction, not a life-and-death violent crime case. It happens with lawyers and injunctions and it takes time. The goal of SEC enforcement isn't to prevent scams mid-fraud, it's to make fraud unattractive as a moneymaking endeavor.

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