Topic: [LABCOIN] IPO [BTCT.CO] - Details/FAQ and Discussion (ASIC dev/sales/mining) - page 141. (Read 1079974 times)

There will be a long holiday in China, so basically almost no one is working the next week. Pretty bad timing. I am afraid we could not see the hash rate increase before the closure of btct.

When did Howard Wang solicit funds from anyone? As far as TheSwede is concerned, it could be a problem for him, I suppose. But he (obviously) doesn't run labcoin.

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.

Furthermore, those issues have always existed, everyone "investing" in bitcoin stocks should have been aware of it and taken it into consideration.

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.

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, which depends on their local laws.


What difference does it make where the company is registered?  If burnside is in the US, then he has to follow US law. However, people who are not in the US do not need to follow US law.

I have no idea why this is so difficult for you to understand.

People in the US, and/or doing business in the US need to follow US law.

People outside the US need to follow the laws of their local jurisdiction.


The SEC doesn't prosecute people, they only issue fines.  It's the DOJ/FBI that actually investigates and prosecutes criminal matters. In some cases the SEC can refer cases to the DOJ, but that's actually extremely rare.

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.

WTF?

Interesting, so it is clear then that the security of US citizens is being violated by the SEC and the SEC is willing to violate even national sovereignty to force their will--because they can.
 

I said diehard libertarians.You dont have to be a diehard libertarian to oppose that.  In fact, you will find many people from the opposite extreme of the political spectrum opposing most of the  things you mention at least as vehemently. Ask dennis kucinich what he thinks of Nafta, Too big too fail, IMF, the Fed, TARP. Are we counting kucinich among die hard libertarians now? Obivously not. So the issues you raise arent libertarian issues, most of them are just about common sense.

Entirely possible and plausible, along with the PT operators, but the issue isnt whether the SEC will do it, the issue is the SEC can do it, because they are breaking US security laws. Doesnt matter where asicminer is incorporated. Doesnt matter what nationality friedcat has.

As for your huge font text about Burnside, you realise his company is registered in Belize, right?  That Belize isnt a city in the US, right ? Hey guess what, it doenst matter any more as where labcoin (isnt) incorporated. They are soliciting funds from US investors in the US, hence they are subject to SEC regulation.

The virtual cop of the world don´t like competition.
They have CDO´s to f* the world, but gambling is bad, Jebus says somewhere in his book

Burnside has to follow US law because he lives in the US, dumbass.

Also, Nigeria actually has very strict banking regulation compared to other countries, and 419 scams have always been illegal there, that's why they're called 419s, that's the legal code they violate. The government there prosecutes people who do it all the time. (They're actually rather embarrassed about this reputation they've earned)

If you sold shares in a scam stock in Nigeria, you'd be prosecuted, if caught.  But the reason you'd be prosecuted is because you would have broken Nigerian law, not because you broke US law.

If labcoin is a total scam, then obviously the people behind face serious legal consiquences. This would be true if they were based in Nigeria, Taiwan, Italy, Cyprus, wherever. On the other hand, if they're not a scam then the only relevant issue is the legality of the securities.  For example, it appears that it's not illegal in Belize.

That issue applies equally to all stocks based outside of the US like ASICMiner, NEOBEE and so on.  If the US government is actually going to try to go after people outside the US simply for "violating" SEC regulations then those companies are also at risk.

Finally, the job of the SEC is to protect shareholders.  That means that if they go after these people, they would try to recover the value that shareholders lost.  Also all they do is levy fines, usually pretty small ones.  The Pirateat40 case was the FBI, not the SEC, because that was a scam - not a violation of securities regulation

Theswede doesnt seem to be sitting in HK, nor does Howard Wang. Those that are abroad could still be charged and found guilty in the US for soliciting funds in the US from US citizens. Whether or not they would demand extradition or if HK or Italy would grant it is a moot point.

First of all, people in the US were able to play online poker for years without any trouble.  What changed is that the US made it illegal for people to help transfer money for US citizens for the purposes of gambling.

That meant that you couldn't transfer money from your bank account (in the US) to a poker site directly, because in order for that to happen you had to do business in the US, and that basically made it impossible for regular people to play.

Secondly, the US government may get involved if people are being actively scammed (ala pirateat40) and they may try to get someone extradited. On the other hand, if all they did was issue securities that were legal in their country it seems unlikely they would care.

All of this legal theorizing about securities registration applies equally to Freidcat and ASICMiner. Are the people in here really claiming that the US government is going to hunt down Freidcat and try to prosecute him for issuing unregistered securities?

Those legal concerns apply equally to all bitcoin stocks, including ASICMiner, as well as ActiveMining (which at even greater risk given the fact that they're US based) - Those legal issues were the same before anyone ever heard of Labcoin, and they were a background issue.  Everyone understood them (or should have) when they bought the shares.

Yet, suddenly everyone is complaining about this stock in particular because it isn't performing well. If the price haddn't tanked I doubt you'd see nearly as much speculation about it.

Either way, assuming that US law applies to everyone around the world and that the SEC has global jurisdiction is just ridiculous.

@Ukyo

Can you confirm that you have been contacted by Labcoin in matters regarding stock exchange ?

https://www.sec.gov/about/offices/oia/oia_cooparrangements.shtml

What? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload

Probably shouldn't underestimate the reach of US authorities. They can easily get to companies or people e.g. through the banks they use, their relationship with local regulators, etc.

What's fair price for 300GH/s? 0.0001 or am I missing a 0? Ppl are still buying at >.0005 though.

The US government being "interested" in something doesn't mean it can actually do anything.  Just look at the MegaUpload case, for example.   MegaUpload wasn't based in the U.S, didn't do business in the US and as a result the US government can't actually do anything about it.

If it was an outright fraud, then obviously they'll face serious legal issues wherever they reside. If it's not a fraud, and just a case of incompetence then the legal issues will be less serious. Their IPO may not have violated local securities regulations any more then kickstarter would have (or it may have, I'm not an expert on HK law - and neither is anyone else around here)


I'm pretty sure they have multiple BTCGuild accounts pointed to that address, well either they or some third party. If you do an auto pay, you get exactly that much each hour.  If you get an auto-pay every hour then excess builds up.   But that means you should only see large payments every once in a while as they flush the excess from one account.

On the other hand, if you have multiple accounts you can build up excess in both, and flush either at any time. One might not have an auto-pay at all.

It's not really all that relevant because they're clearly not mining enough to make their stock recover given their disastrous performance over the past week or so.

Please explain how the dumb and mighty USA want to enforce their regulations on people sitting in Hongkong or Italy.
I am very interested in that.

As you have been told a million times, it doesnt matter where the company issuing the stock is incorporated (afaik labcoin isnt even incorporated). You have to follow US law when soliciting funds for unregistered securities from (unsophisticated) US citizens in the US. Even less doubt if the promoter/agent is a US citizen living in the US.

What the securities are about is of no importance, you cant promote and sell unregistered Nigerian stocks in the US, just because Nigerian law would allow it.

There is a reason Burnside at some point planned to deny access to his exchange for US citizens,  but you seem to daft to grasp why.

Not to take anyones side in this argument but this isnt correct. If you are providing service from wherever to US citizens US authorities will be interested.
Look what happened to online poker.

Yeah, these people blathering on about the SEC and US laws.  The company isn't in the U.S, It's founders aren't US Citizens.

Companies and people outside of the US don't need to comply with US laws.  If it's actually a fraud, then obviously that will probably be illegal wherever they are.  But there's no reason to assume that all countries have the same regulations about securities, in particular securities that are sold for things other then traditional money.

If you have something specific about HK law, Italian law, or whatever feel free to post it.  But it isn't the case that everyone in the world needs to follow US law.

No, more like -9000 for forgetting status quo non-libertarian hyper-regulation created the conditions which inspired/necessitated Satoshi to release Bitcoin.

Let me remind everyone about MF Global, Too Big To Fail, Central Banking (from the Fed to the BIS), TARP, NAFTA, Government Motors, and the rest of the Great Bailout.

If you don't like Bitcoin denominated markets, go play on NASDAQ with your eTrade account.