Pages:
Author

Topic: $257 Million: Filecoin Breaks All-Time Record for ICO Funding (Read 1758 times)

Ucy
sr. member
Activity: 2576
Merit: 401
Wish  a "follow"  feature is available on this forum.. need lots of like minded folks to follow. We need to be organized. The way things are going these days is unbelievable. Cryptocurrency is about Decentralization, non- crypto fans need to respect this and leave us alone.
I think perhaps Filecoin is the first legitimate ICO legally issued to accredited investors on a crowd equity platform, thus it was probably snapped up and considered to be more professional and legitimate.

Regulators have flawed logic with regards to accredited investors (wealthier people). They think accredited investors are better investors. That is not true quite often and not true most of the time when it comes to technology.  Doctors and dentists do not know how to invest.  Surviving spouses may know nothing about business.  Celebrities are horrible investors. Real estate developers know less about technology than a basement dweller geek.

Regulators allow accredited investors to invest because regulators think that accredited investors can handle the loss.  This logic is flawed as well.  If a 65 year old, retired accredited investor loses 100% of his net worth, the rest of his life is screwed.  If a 20 year old, basement dweller geek loses 100% of his net worth, it's not that serious.

EOS Platform tokens are securities and very likely they have been illegal issued to USA non-accredited investors. I wouldn’t touch that hot potato. Could get delisted by the SEC and become illegal to trade.

Meaning if you are trading EOS Platform tokens, you may be committing a crime. This could come back to haunt you some years from now, when the regulators get around to it.

EOS rejected users with US IP addresses and forced users to acknowledge that they read the Purchase Agreement, which stated that US persons are not allowed to purchase.  I don't know if this will protect them sufficiently, but they did not solicit accredited or non-accredited investors from the U.S.




legendary
Activity: 1540
Merit: 1011
FUD Philanthropist™
Exactly.. why do they need a quarter billion dollars ?
sr. member
Activity: 896
Merit: 251
Such ICO's and such funds says one only - many people wanting to catch fish in troubled waters. For what project need s such budget I don't understand. Real company with real product collect much smaller funds and do own product.
Imho soon big fund raising will be equal scam or projects from which to stay away
legendary
Activity: 1540
Merit: 1011
FUD Philanthropist™
A quick check on the Internet shows that Dropbox ( the company) was valued at 10 Billion dollars in 2014.  $250 million for a startup competing in that space doesn't seem totally out of line, to me.

That is fucking retarded fail.

Quote
Bitcoin    $66,998,988,963    $4046.85    

https://coinmarketcap.com/

Amount from the Bitcoin ICO ?

0 Dollars and 0 cents.  Roll Eyes
full member
Activity: 406
Merit: 114
A quick check on the Internet shows that Dropbox ( the company) was valued at 10 Billion dollars in 2014.  $250 million for a startup competing in that space doesn't seem totally out of line, to me.
legendary
Activity: 1540
Merit: 1011
FUD Philanthropist™
Record breaking Crypto-Pyramid Scheme ?
Shocked  Cheesy

What do they need a quarter billion dollars for again ?
newbie
Activity: 55
Merit: 0
If you're 25 now and invested in this. Good luck getting a 10X ROI or nothing at all by the time you have a grandson.  Grin
member
Activity: 98
Merit: 10
Government can't stop the development of blockchains , is $257 million  a new record for ico now ?Congratulations to Filecoin.

With that amount of money gathered from their ICO, they should have updates posted for it within days of launching the coin. There is so much things that someone can do with that much money, 257 million dollars can be used to hire a huge amount of developers that can build the project and expand it without the money in the budget being affected by it. They wouldn’t even need a million dollars to get people interested in working with them, so it should be interesting to see how much longer they will wait till they release something ground-breaking and disrupt virtual currencies.

You know of course that most (or a very significant portion) of the money ends up in the pockets for those who organized this, not in R&D.

The tragedy-of-the-commons in fundraising, means that it will always be a slush fund for the crocodiles and bureaucracy.

It’s a tragedy-of-the-commons no matter if it is regulated or unregulated. The top-down control — required to enforce regulation to prevent South Seas Bubbles wherein people are not dumb to invest in worthless shit — enables crocodiles to take most of the fundraising for themselves.

ICOs are the antithesis of decentralized. They’re the antithesis of what some of us ideologically dedicated folks want to achieve.

What do they need a quarter billion dollars for again ?

Not for R&D.
hero member
Activity: 756
Merit: 500
CryptoTalk.Org - Get Paid for every Post!
Government can't stop the development of blockchains , is $257 million  a new record for ico now ?Congratulations to Filecoin.
With that amount of money gathered from their ICO, they should have updates posted for it within days of launching the coin. There is so much things that someone can do with that much money, 257 million dollars can be used to hire a huge amount of developers that can build the project and expand it without the money in the budget being affected by it. They wouldn’t even need a million dollars to get people interested in working with them, so it should be interesting to see how much longer they will wait till they release something ground-breaking and disrupt virtual currencies.
member
Activity: 98
Merit: 10
I have been warning everyone that ICO-issued tokens (even if legally issued) can’t be traded or used as a cryptocurrency, because as securities they must only be traded on regulated exchanges.

If the regulators were to allow ICO-issued tokens to trade freely (i.e. as a cryptocurrency), then they will have lost control over rampant, fraudulent speculative tragedy-of-the-commons mania.

Thus the SAFTs that were sold in the Filecoin ICO encumber the Filecoin tokes as securities. Thus the Filecoin tokens are useless and can’t be actually used decentralized (unless hypothetically the common enterprise ceases as explained below).

Quoted from the 1933 Securities Act:

In particular, Benet drew a distinction between offering a coin for the purposes of raising money and using it as a tool for running a useful service.

My analysis about “use value” tokens being irrelevant to the issues that the Howey Test looks at, agrees with the attorney I am quoting here.

It doesn’t matter that the SAFTs can be speculated on and that the separate Filecoin tokens have some utility other than as speculations, the Howey Test only requires that the investors have an expectation-of-profit in a common enterprise managed by the others (typically the issuer), and the security is the investment contract certificate that records who receives the gains. Any obfuscations which attempt to circumvent the intent of the law, which is that securities must always be registered and trade on registered examples, are invalid under the Howey Test. There is no way to convert a security into a non-security (except as aforementioned the common enterprise ceases), because that would circumvent the entire point of the law. The investors are not investing in SAFTs but in the Filecoin tokens they receive for the SAFTs. Without the Filecoin tokens, the SAFTs are worthless. The Howey Test states it will always look at the economic reality and ignore any tricks that attempt to obfuscate the economic reality.

I think that the next max cap can be COMSA ICO. Not just because I advertise it at my signature…

Promoting ICOs makes you an affiliate. Which means you have severe fines and even jail time awaiting you in the future.

You may be in a some 2nd or 3rd world country and think you are out-of-reach of such regulatory crackdown. But those G20 can still find a way to take your assets and arrest you. That is if you use an international wires, travel internationally, etc.. They may also in the future pressure your government to acquiesce to enforcement as the USA has achieved with FATCA worldwide.

EDIT: since writing this post, I have recently analysed the securities implications in more detail.

Disclaimer: IANAL. This is not legal advice.
full member
Activity: 392
Merit: 102
how different is filecoin to stoj and maidsafe? are they not oing exactly the same thing?
sr. member
Activity: 602
Merit: 252
This happening also popped up in my newsfeed in my browser and I had no words when I read it. The majority of the sale was bought out by big time investors and the ICO was exclusively available only for private investors. No wonder it made that much because of what they bring into the field.
It's going to be real cheap, cloud storage. No more high priced services like Dropbox and instead everyone will be able to trade coins in return for storage space which is a great idea. I can only see good going to a great height because of the well thought ideas.
member
Activity: 72
Merit: 10
Not serious at all, Russia just came out with support, China ban is temporary. Space will hit $1T+ Market Cap next year.

You’re lying.

All these regulators in all the major nations will eventually force ICOs into regulated (or exempted) securities issuance, similar to Filecoin’s issuance. But the problem with that, is that the tokens issued as securities are then not freely tradeable.

All of those who are trading ICO-issued tokens now, are committing illegal trading. Proof-of-work issued tokens are not securities and thus not illegal to trade (this does not include scam issuance via instamines and sneaky/stealth mines).

Clawbacks, prosecutions, fines, and jail time are coming. Mark my word.

Seriously folks. Stop incriminating yourselves. Clean up your act now, so maybe the regulators will be lenient on you because at least you reformed yourself.

If you think i'm lying than you clearly have no understanding of this space and what it is. Sure, States will attempt to regulate but this will fail over time and those that don't will thrive. There are no clawbacks with a blockchain, pandoras box has been opened.
newbie
Activity: 17
Merit: 0
I feel bad for Filecoin investors. They probability just dont understand how much money 257 Million is. This is a good example how you can influence others with good marketing.
full member
Activity: 434
Merit: 110
wow i just see this thread and the amount raised is unbelievable

what  the advantages that this ICO offered ? 
and can someone share the official website for Filecoin ?

filecoin.io, you can find whitepaper on the front page.
sr. member
Activity: 260
Merit: 250
snack of all trades
never hear about that ICO before and this ICO world is crazy.
hero member
Activity: 672
Merit: 500
There are already three projects doing the same or similar thing: Siacoin, Storj and Maidsafe.

I guess Filecoin investors never of heard of them or don't think much of them.
I wasn't aware of that thanks for informing me i was afraid to invest in this ico because most according to me are considered scam because they simply fill up 50 pages and raise millions. About this project now I'm surely gonna hold it for long term siacoin is really slow but will recover slowly in the coming days or maybe weeks
legendary
Activity: 2926
Merit: 1440
Are the bans and warnings on ICOs gravely serious? If it is, then why are the known venture capitalists like Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz still investing millions in ICOs?

Is the Chinese, Russian, US governments and others giving these warnings because they are scared people can fund themselves without their permission and authority?

You seem to habitually fail to pay attention to important details.

That ICO began on August 10, and only $3 million was raised in past 3 days since ICO bad news.


…as accredited investors swamped the CoinList website

It is legal ICO issuance with proper disclosures and was sold only to accredited investors. It is not these scammy ICOs we’ve been seeing that are not correctly issued under appropriate exemption from registration.

More importantly, even legal token issuance will mean those tokens are restricted securities that can only be sold on regulated exchanges. They can’t be traded decentralized and thus are not a cryptocurrency.

More details:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.21616747
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.21615589

Yes, you are right! So is this the future of ICOs? Are accredited investors the only people allowed to invest money in the ICO before listing them in an exchange? Then why do they need a token? Why not follow the traditional way of funding a project?

Unless the big boys want to control the whole scam funding model to scam us.
member
Activity: 98
Merit: 10
The equity securities regulation issues are a mess. For example this article will give you some idea how difficult it is to comply given international investors combined with US investors, and reporting requirements once it grows, and then think of the mess it will be to actually ever go IPO or reach a capital gain on your shares:

https://www.paulhastings.com/publications-items/details/?id=9c59e969-2334-6428-811c-ff00004cbded

If we go that route, we’ll likely end up in some regulatory or lawsuit “purgatory” (i.e. gridlock clusterfuck) down the line. It is a huge mess that we need to avoid.

I've also edited the following post to make it clear that I do not think the crowd equity paradigms are without problems:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.21616747

I’m leaning away from equity as viable funding for decentralized ledger development.

Whereas, decentralized groups could raise their own equity for their own companies that develop (e.g. revenue generating apps) for a decentralized ledger ecosystem. Because they can form a small group selling to investors in one country.

I realize some others are thinking about obfuscations such as governance models like Dash’s scammy issuance of tokens to itself and then voting by themselves to pay themselves. I think that is way off target. The decentralized ledger (and its tokens) must be unencumbered from securities regulation. Over the long-term, all encumbered decentralized ledger tokens will be destroyed by regulatory action. They are not anti-fragile.

Startups who embark on the ICO journey are creating automated value transfer systems that operate across borders with no KYC. These systems, once turned on, cannot be turned off or controlled. But the startups will continue to be expected to maintain them.

This is not easy, technically or legally. For this reason, the SAFT is clearly not anything near a cure-all for the compliance issues an ICO startup will later face, whether in the field of securities regulation or otherwise.

An interview about SAFT explains some of the issues, but do realize I disagree that the SAFT is a valid solution.
sr. member
Activity: 364
Merit: 250
I always wonder why people need a lot of money for ICO. even without the chinese ban, what you think that they will do with our $257 million? Does this project really need a big amount of money to run? I do not think so. There are many small ICO but they can still successful
Pages:
Jump to: