Comment by nnx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nnx | Hacker News Reader

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"In Ethereum, a centralized group of people put together a public sale of the token, promising great returns in exchange due to their visionary ideas. This is all perfectly fine, except they didn't register their sale as a security"

If I write a book with visionary ideas that promises to change your life (great returns) and continue to work on revisions as I come up with new ideas - should I register it as a security before I can sell my book?

The whole concept of securities laws makes little sense if you try to expand its reach beyond narrow traditional finance use cases... if even those cases make sense in the first place.

Might be better off repealing all this complexity/bureaucracy and better enforce existing generic laws about theft/fraud...

> If I write a book with visionary ideas that promises to change your life (great returns) and continue to work on revisions as I come up with new ideas - should I register it as a security before I can sell my book

Is there an expectation of profit in those buying your book? No? Then it’s not a security.

It’s a multi-prong test. Investor protection laws are substantial; everything is constantly being challenged in courts as a security.

Everyone buying a book expects to profit at least as much as the cost of the book from it

But not in actual money. "Profit" in utility, not in cash.

You nailed it, securities law doesn't make sense if you don't apply it to finance. Not sure that really advances the rest of the claims.

Owning the book does not promise returns.

How about, say, Pokemon cards? Lots of people buy them with an expectation of profit, which relies on the efforts of The Pokemon Company (among others) to continue to grow the player base.

They very well could be. I'm knowledgeable enough to answer.

I also wonder how does it work with one-of-a-kind collectibles, such as old letters written by famous people, paintings, rare/unique coins, ..., and NFTs.

Neither does owning Ethereum. You could lose money.

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