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Comment by lelanthran | Hacker News Reader

> I can take my money and put it into a slot machine, gamble it on horses, gamble it on sports games. I can buy useless thousand dollar sneakers, I can buy pokemon cards. I can waste my money on absurdly overpriced art, give it to scammy non-profits, donate it to scammy spoiler political candidates.

> In some states I can use my money to hire hookers, or buy drugs.

> But if I want to buy crypto, all of a sudden that is a problem and the government needs to come in and "protect" me from it. Why is that, I wonder?

If the casinos advertised slot machines as an investment, would you still wonder?

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He probably would. I have access to a bunch of good investment opportunities that US citizens don't have, because they are "protected" from accidentally making money. I have a stack of little pamphlets outlining interesting investment deals in Australia all labelled with "don't show this to anyone in the US, if you are a US person this isn't for you and we ask that you don't read it". This isn't crypto, only standard shares. Nothing fancy.

It is pretty stupid. Good for me, it means I don't have to compete against people with money, but it does showcase how crazy the policies are. It is, in some senses, as bad as the Chinese capital controls.

Bitcoin has outperformed a number of investments so far and has proven more reliable than, eg, some bonds by Credit Suisse. If people want to put money there it is passing tests of legitimacy right now. Outperforming the Swiss is a reasonable bar.

The Swiss =|= Credit Suisse

Also, I know of a bridge that is up for sale. A Nigerian prince told my late uncle who used to work there in the oil and gas sector. But don't tell the Americans, no need to waste such a great investment opportunity.

Credit Suisse certainly does not encompass all Swiss, but it certainly includes a number of them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy

The fact that you are equating this major Swiss bank to bridge salesmen and Nigerian princes kind of proves OP’s point.

It seems you did not read OPs comment completely, did you? The second refered to his investment opportunuties that have "not for US citizens" written on them.

And Credit Suisse wasn't the most stable bank to begin with, despite being the second largest in Switzerland. So of course their bonds have been riskier than others. On the other hand, hadn't Credit Suisse failed those bond returns would have been higher as well. No idea why people just don't get the link between risk and returns

Investment opportunities in major Australian companies. You might have your own thoughts about the Australian market, but we're hardly talking wild risk here. Although, in fairness, Transurban Group probably does sell bridges and Rio Tinto/BHP probably do a lot of business with Nigerian Princes so you might get some irony points. But the profits are there.

But let us not get distracted from the main point, the US regulations in the area are the stuff of laughter. They're literally being forbidden from raking in easy money by their own government for no good reason.

Ah yes, the good ol' trick old as scammers themselves, investment pamphlets with secret sauces, magically unavailable those holding US passports because some made up reasons (or actual regulatory concerns which should interest you if you are smart).

Also, investing in shares, competing for shares, my friend I don't think you understand all this mumbo jumbo you wrote

Isn’t this pretty standard among developed countries and not unique to the US?

I don’t think, to reverse the example, that US companies can offer investments to Australians without an AFSL or without oversight by ASIC or APRA.

Bernie Madoff also outperformed the major banks. I bet you would have been mocking people for not investing in his schemes

I guess if you have a problem with the laws of the country or state you are in, you should take it with your local legislator. They're the only ones able to do something about it. Skirting the legislation because one considers it "stupid" is not gonna bring anybody very far.

I suppose you apply those principles consistently even for things you find morally repugnant?

I cannot find off the top of my head those morally repugnant laws you might be talking about. And as we were mentioning, financial regulation and investors protection for one are definitely not morally repugnant - to me.

Let’s not pretend like anyone thinks we can reasonably reach out to someone and have any impact on what the SEC does. This country runs off money, not voter sentiment, and we all know it.

I may be misremembering but I seem to recall that the Pokemon cards and other collectible card games go out of their way to clarify that they are NOT investments.

A huge number of crypto projects never advertised their tokens as an investment, and explicitly and repeatedly stated that they are not investments and should not be expected to appreciate, yet the SEC still charged them with promoting an unregistered security.

I get scam emails that say "this is not a scam!", too.

You losing the context here. The point was that slot machines are a scam, but also a billion dollar industry.

Slot machines are typically heavily regulated.

Saying "this is not a security" in a disclaimer does not stop your ICO/token/shitcoin from being a security.

Marketing a token as an investment and selling unregistered securities are two different things. You can do the latter without the former and it's still illegal.

Please read about the Howey test. Saying "its not a security" obviously doesn't matter anymore than if i rob someone and say "not a robbery" during the crime

Can you give an example of one?

Pretty much all of them: they go out of their way to state it is not an investment.

Taken the GNT token, used in the Golem network, for example:

https://assets.website-files.com/62446d07873fde065cbcb8d5/62...

Just reading this and I don't understand how anyone would say this passes the Howey Test. This is clearly a security. The only possible debate is whether there is an expectation of profit, but I can't see anyone seriously entertaining that debate -- there was an ICO! What do you think the median person buying into that ICO was expecting? "I'm going to spend a few thousands dollars on this token that might have utility in this project in a few years"?? Come on.

If this is a security, then so is pokemon.

This is a token sale. It never called itself an "ICO".

The whitepaper never once claimed the token is expected to profit its owners, and repeatedly warns of the risk of loss. It explicitly says the paper is not an investment prospectus as well.

>>What do you think the median person buying into that ICO was expecting? "I'm going to spend a few thousands dollars on this token that might have utility in this project in a few years"?? Come on.

If it turned out that the median person buying Pokemon cards were doing it for the purpose of deriving a profit, that wouldn't turn Pokemon cards into securities.

The difference between pokemon and this is the common enterprise component. This is very obviously a common enterprise; pokemon is very obviously not.

Can you name one?

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