When did Howard Wang solicit funds from anyone?
We have no idea what his role is. If he was merely an employee, I dont see a problem. But since he is the one who started this, Id be surprised if he didnt have a management role in the company.
Do you know what the word "solicit" means? If we didn't see him publicly solicit funding, then he wasn't publicly soliciting funding. I'm not sure where you came up with the idea that Howard Wang "started all this", he seems to be a random developer hired by Alessia Tatti (or whoever)
As far as TheSwede is concerned, it could be a problem for him, I suppose. But he (obviously) doesn't run labcoin.
Apparently there is no point in arguing with you, because every statement I make and document with links goes in one ear and out the other. Theswede isnt in trouble for running labcoin, he is in trouble for " knowingly or recklessly" providing "substantial assistance" in soliciting these funds. You could probably also argue he is liable as controlling person through agency
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/77oI don't understand how you think any of that disagrees with what I said.
Also, you seem to be missing the point that there is a huge legal difference between a scam, which is illegal everywhere, and simply selling unregistered securities. If the US government were actually going to go out of their way to prosecute people who did that, it would apply equally to ASICMiner, NEOBEE and the rest - and even more so ActM, since it's US based.
I dont miss that
at all. My point is that Labcoin is violating US law even if its not a scam. And yes, that applies to pretty much every security on BTCT, Bitfunder and other exchanges that are readily available in the US and accept US investors' funds. As for Active miner, the shares issued are for the Belize company, not the US based sales company, but indeed that doesnt make it any more legal.
Yes, it applies equally to every fund. It's not exclusive to labcoin or any more of a risk for them then for ASICMiner, NEOBEE and the like, and in turn there's no extra risk in investing in Labcoin over any other bitcoin stock. They could all be shut down tomorrow.
When you "invest" in a bitcoin stock, you have to take that risk.
If the US government wanted too it could try to shut down bitcoin entirely, as well. They could make bitcoin mining illegal and try to prosecute anyone who does it, since mining technically means certifying transactions as legitimate they could argue that bitcoin mining represents a form of money transfer, which means that you would need to know someone's identity in order to include transactions from them in the block chain.
THis is indeed unclear at the present afaik. More info here:
http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-law-what-us-businesses-need-to-know/But that changes nothing about the legality of issuing unregistered company stock and seems far less likely to provoke action by the SEC or other agencies.
Are you kidding? The government is going to be a lot more concerned about drug dealers, terrorists, and rouge governments being able to send money anonymously and freely without any controls. Bitcoin routs around anti money-laundering laws and that's much more of a concern for the parts of the government that
actually arrest people (i.e.
not the SEC)
Again, if Labcoin is a scam and they just ran off with all the money then clearly there could be legal consequences. If not, there there are no more likely to be legal consequences from them then for every other bitcoin stock,
I never said anything else, excpt:
which depends on their local laws.
For crying out loud. How can you be this dense?
In general, all securities offered in the U.S. must be registered with the SEC or must qualify for an exemption from the registration requirements
http://www.sec.gov/answers/regis33.htmAre you saying these securities are not made available in the US? Does it say that securities related to foreign companies are excempt?
How were the shares offered "in" the U.S? If the shares are offered overseas then you don't need to comply with US laws, even if Americans are buying them over the internet. If I were to open a brokerage account in Cyprus or Belize or somewhere, I could buy stock in companies that aren't registered in the US with real money. How would that be a problem for the issuer?
Secondly, it's just as likely that the government will crack down on bitcoin itself as it is they'll crack down on bitcoin shares. If you don't think you should have any money in something that the government theoretically crack down on then you should immediately sell all your bitcoin, as the government could declare it illegal tomorrow, if they wanted.
THey can also make drinking softdrinks illegal if they want, but its not illegal now. However, selling unregulated securities to unsophisticated investors already is beyond a shadow of doubt.
There are already laws against money laundering, and against transferring money without a license, etc. The government wouldn't any new laws to go after bitcoin. They recently put out some guidance saying they weren't planning on doing that, but they can change their mind whenever they want.
While there is certainly a legal risk for people, like Burnside inside the US issuing securities due to US law, again, US law does not apply to people who aren't in the US.
There is also the question of whether or not BTCT.co "securities" were actually legally securities, given the disclaimer. A security typically means a contract, whereas btct.co shares were not contracts and in fact you had to sign away any legal rights in order to use the exchange. Technically there was no
promise of anything at all.
That doesn't mean burnside was wrong to be concerned, but the reason he shut down the exchange seems to be due to concerns, not any government action (that we know of). Seems unlikely they'd let him keep running it for two weeks if it was.
