The SEC IS Investigating Bitcoin Securities Exchanges

Ytterbium

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Seriously, though. I doubt it will be a problem for U.S. "shareholders.", on the other hand I would be skeptical of investing in any U.S. based company selling shares directly through the site.

Simply running a "passthrough" company doesn't mean the SEC won't be able to mess with you if they feel like it.

On the other hand, a company that's actually not run in the U.S at all probably doesn't have much to worry about. Look at the Kim Dotcom situation - the US tried to prosecute him, but the problem is he's not American, not based in the U.S and doesn't even do any business here, so how can he be prosecuted in the US?

The idea with SOPA was that the US government would be able to just block sites that didn't follow U.S. law, like China. We can see how that went...

Quote from: deltanine on August 07, 2013, 05:52:55 PM

Quote from: superduh on August 07, 2013, 05:47:45 PM

OP should be investigated to see if he is spreading rumors and lies in order to manipulate the market (it's illegal)

He is being investigated. I just got off the phone with a SEC specialist. He said that OP was indeed breaking the law and would be dealt with post haste. Oh yeah, he also said OP was a big, fat liar and to never accept a word out of his mouth as being true.

If you don't believe me ask them here https://tts.sec.gov/oiea/QuestionsAndComments.html they called me back.

LOL.

stslimited

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Quote from: TheSwede75 on August 07, 2013, 05:57:02 PM

Why even pay attention to this troll? Also: Who here believes that you can just randomly call and ask about specific possible unpublished SEC investigations? Yeah..

well asking if "you've lost any money" doing business with the person you speak of, is pretty common, this would help them rationalize starting an investigation

or at least starting a file and seeing if anyone else complains

joele

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Quote from: LordMeowMeow on August 07, 2013, 02:58:40 PM

Even if he is a troll, it would be nice to a get a clear answer on:

- What could push the SEC to close the exchanges
- What can the exchanges do to conform to the regulations
- What happens if the SEC comes down on them, do we lose our bitcoins?

All our bitcoins, bank accounts will be confiscated, we all go to jail, strip and will be brutally tortured.

TheSwede75

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Why even pay attention to this troll? Also: Who here believes that you can just randomly call and ask about specific possible unpublished SEC investigations? Yeah..

deltanine

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Quote from: superduh on August 07, 2013, 05:47:45 PM

OP should be investigated to see if he is spreading rumors and lies in order to manipulate the market (it's illegal)

He is being investigated. I just got off the phone with a SEC specialist. He said that OP was indeed breaking the law and would be dealt with post haste. Oh yeah, he also said OP was a big, fat liar and to never accept a word out of his mouth as being true.

If you don't believe me ask them here https://tts.sec.gov/oiea/QuestionsAndComments.html they called me back.

superduh

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OP should be investigated to see if he is spreading rumors and lies in order to manipulate the market (it's illegal)

str4wm4n

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PANIC SELL Grin

Pale Phoenix

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Quote from: bob131313 on August 07, 2013, 03:48:02 PM

Quick note. IMHOP and limited understanding of bitfunder. The asset list: https://bitfunder.com/assetlist
means that there isn't even a need for a site. If the site goes down as long as the asset list is current on any other clone and they are synced, maybe a private altcoin with a specific blockchain for managing the list, any site anywhere could reproduce everyone's holdings.

Not sure if btct maintains a similar list, maybe they can work together to create sec-coin and open up a shared api.

Of course if I am completely misunderstanding the current back-end, please enlighten me.

I believe burnside maintains a mirror of the Bitfunder list on btct.co, as well. I haven't seen a similar public list of btct shareholders, but they do mail a list to each asset issuer every 12 hours.

Dooglus has implemented an interesting idea on Just Dice. Each account can specify an "emergency address" to receive Bitcoins in the event something nasty happens to dooglus or the site. This should probably be standard on all sites facing any kind of uncertainty.

Pale Phoenix

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Activity: 420

Merit: 250

Quote from: superduh on August 07, 2013, 03:21:57 PM

Quote from: LordMeowMeow on August 07, 2013, 02:58:40 PM

Even if he is a troll, it would be nice to a get a clear answer on:

- What could push the SEC to close the exchanges
- What can the exchanges do to conform to the regulations
- What happens if the SEC comes down on them, do we lose our bitcoins?

United State of the World?
SEC has jurisdiction in the US.
What has become of this world? why are people unable to understand that there are different rules, gov agencies, policies, procedures around the world

You should definitely familiarize yourself with the concept of the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, and how it has been used worldwide to prosecute / extradite foreigners for violation of U.S. laws. It is an incredibly big stick used by Leviathan quite regularly. Not to mention that as a practical matter, all three top exchanges host with U.S. based content delivery networks and therefore have a nexus in the U.S. market.

Potentially more vulnerable than the exchanges are the asset issuers themselves. Even if they aren't U.S. based, they have offered securities to U.S. citizens, and are most likely in violation of the securities laws in their own countries as well. Even China seems to prohibit the issuance of these unregulated securities.

There is no way to know what the SEC plans to do, but based on its history of prosecutions, it seems unlikely that it will take drastic action in the absence of fraud. I'm sure some analysts at the SEC are familiar with Bitcoin securities, but in a world of limited resources, enforcement actions are usually prioritized in favor of easy cases with obviously bad actors.

All of that said, I'm of the opinion that the OP is trolling for cheap shares.

crumbs

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Quote from: superduh on August 07, 2013, 03:21:57 PM

Quote from: LordMeowMeow on August 07, 2013, 02:58:40 PM

Even if he is a troll, it would be nice to a get a clear answer on:

- What could push the SEC to close the exchanges
- What can the exchanges do to conform to the regulations
- What happens if the SEC comes down on them, do we lose our bitcoins?

United State of the World?
SEC has jurisdiction in the US.
What has become of this world? why are people unable to understand that there are different rules, gov agencies, policies, procedures around the world

-Burnside lives where? Belize?
-The SEC, Being a US agency, has jurisdiction anywhere US clout is sufficient, which is to say just about everywhere. See: 400-pound gorilla.

As for your last questions:
-i don't know.
-they mostly do, they just act according to how shit works IRL, not how it's described on paper. See: 400-pound gorilla.

Too many backyard practitioners of international law here.

Rival

hero member

Activity: 504

Merit: 502

If anyone thinks for one second that the SEC is not aware of these bitcoin security exchanges then they have not spent much time thinking about it. Of course they know, they probably monitor them and even read these forums. The question is whether they feel the need to do anything about them, and whether it will be cost effective to do so. I think at the moment they are stretched pretty thin with much bigger fish, and have little interest in spending their resources on things that are not causing anyone any real problems. But there is no doubt in my mind they are already aware.

N_S

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Merit: 100

Quote from: optimator on August 07, 2013, 04:09:38 PM

Quote from: bob131313 on August 07, 2013, 03:48:02 PM

Quick note. IMHOP and limited understanding of bitfunder. The asset list: https://bitfunder.com/assetlist
means that there isn't even a need for a site. If the site goes down as long as the asset list is current on any other clone and they are synced, maybe a private altcoin with a specific blockchain for managing the list, any site anywhere could reproduce everyone's holdings.

Not sure if btct maintains a similar list, maybe they can work together to create sec-coin and open up a shared api.

Of course if I am completely misunderstanding the current back-end, please enlighten me.

Sometimes it's hard to pick out the grains of truth on this forum... but the quoted text is one of them. If there had been a public bitcoin address ledger for GLBSE many hours of weeping and gnashing of teeth could have been avoided.

It seems any other approach is putting your head in the sand and wishing the inevitable doesn't happen.

How can we make this happen?

optimator

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Activity: 351

Merit: 250

Quote from: bob131313 on August 07, 2013, 03:48:02 PM

Quick note. IMHOP and limited understanding of bitfunder. The asset list: https://bitfunder.com/assetlist
means that there isn't even a need for a site. If the site goes down as long as the asset list is current on any other clone and they are synced, maybe a private altcoin with a specific blockchain for managing the list, any site anywhere could reproduce everyone's holdings.

Not sure if btct maintains a similar list, maybe they can work together to create sec-coin and open up a shared api.

Of course if I am completely misunderstanding the current back-end, please enlighten me.

Sometimes it's hard to pick out the grains of truth on this forum... but the quoted text is one of them. If there had been a public bitcoin address ledger for GLBSE many hours of weeping and gnashing of teeth could have been avoided.

It seems any other approach is putting your head in the sand and wishing the inevitable doesn't happen.

somestranger

hero member

Activity: 487

Merit: 500

Are You Shpongled?

Quote from: Franktank on August 07, 2013, 09:23:13 AM

People, stop feeding the troll. This guy has also mentioned an incoming fork to Bitcoin, converting to scrypt.

Move along folks, nothing to see here.

Even more obvious clue that he's trolling: he removed that particular post from his signature immediately after he posted.

bob131313

sr. member

Activity: 420

Merit: 250

Quick note. IMHOP and limited understanding of bitfunder. The asset list: https://bitfunder.com/assetlist
means that there isn't even a need for a site. If the site goes down as long as the asset list is current on any other clone and they are synced, maybe a private altcoin with a specific blockchain for managing the list, any site anywhere could reproduce everyone's holdings.

Not sure if btct maintains a similar list, maybe they can work together to create sec-coin and open up a shared api.

Of course if I am completely misunderstanding the current back-end, please enlighten me.

N_S

full member

Activity: 238

Merit: 100

Quote from: superduh on August 07, 2013, 03:21:57 PM

United State of the World?
SEC has jurisdiction in the US.
What has become of this world? why are people unable to understand that there are different rules, gov agencies, policies, procedures around the world

Maybe a better way to word it would be, 'what would happen to US residents if the SEC came down on the exchanges?'

Does anyone have any foresight into this? I remember back during the recent burnside scare regarding US residents, I believe he said he'd allow them to withdraw in a given time window. This would no doubt do substantial damage to prices across the board. Also, this assumes that he'd have any say in the matter.

superduh

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Merit: 500

Quote from: LordMeowMeow on August 07, 2013, 02:58:40 PM

Even if he is a troll, it would be nice to a get a clear answer on:

- What could push the SEC to close the exchanges
- What can the exchanges do to conform to the regulations
- What happens if the SEC comes down on them, do we lose our bitcoins?

United State of the World?
SEC has jurisdiction in the US.
What has become of this world? why are people unable to understand that there are different rules, gov agencies, policies, procedures around the world

LordMeowMeow

sr. member

Activity: 617

Merit: 250

Even if he is a troll, it would be nice to a get a clear answer on:

- What could push the SEC to close the exchanges
- What can the exchanges do to conform to the regulations
- What happens if the SEC comes down on them, do we lose our bitcoins?

crumbs

full member

Activity: 210

Merit: 100

Quote from: ThickAsThieves on August 07, 2013, 09:14:33 AM

...
For reference

Quote

Public Beta - Terms of Service
We will do everything in our power to protect you and your virtual goods. However, beyond the content of our cold wallet, the exchange is NOT responsible for ANY bad things that happen to you, your securities, your BTC.
Full Release - Terms of Service
Definitions

BTC-TC, btct.co, BTC Trading Corp, The Corporation - A Belize company operating a website for the purposes of education and entertainment via trading of digital virtual commodities. The Corporation has zero legal tender exposure in any jurisdiction.

฿, BTC - A digital cryptographic virtual commodity. Traded on the internet. Not recognized as legal tender in any jurisdiction. Frequently used as "online gaming tokens".

AKA The Pirateat40 defence, nulled (yesterday, i think). Bitcoin is a currency. Wordplay never works IRL.

Quote

Digital Stock, BTC Stock, Virtual Stock, Stock - A digital virtual commodity, traded within this website. Not recognized as a real legal security in any jurisdiction.

Pointless wordplay again. If it looks and walks like a duck, it's a duck. Has been discussed to death on this very forum. Look at Pirateat40 case for precedence. He argued the very same thing, failed as expected.

[... wall of text, "Not responsible because Belize, virtual and virtual and only a game" ... Full of same fail as above.]

EDIT:

"Shavers argues that the BTCST investments are not securities because Bitcoin is not money, and is not part of anything regulated by the United States," according to the ruling. "Shavers also contends that his transactions were all Bitcoin transactions and that no money ever exchanged hands."

In a four-page order Tuesday, Mazzant found that federal securities law gives the court subject matter jurisdiction over the case.
"It is clear that Bitcoin can be used as money," Mazzant wrote. "It can be used to purchase goods or services, and as Shavers stated, used to pay for individual living expenses. The only limitation of Bitcoin is that it is limited to those places that accept it as currency. However, it can also be exchanged for conventional currencies, such as the U.S. dollar, Euro, Yen, and Yuan. Therefore, Bitcoin is a currency or form of money, and investors wishing to invest in BTCST provided an investment of money."

Edit2: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/06/us-court-sec-bitcoin-idUSBRE97517G20130806

Franktank

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Activity: 560

Merit: 500

People, stop feeding the troll. This guy has also mentioned an incoming fork to Bitcoin, converting to scrypt.

Move along folks, nothing to see here.

Topic: The SEC IS Investigating Bitcoin Securities Exchanges (Read 9929 times)