[ExI] Initial Coin Offerings Horrify a Former S.E.C. Regulator

[Brent Allsop]

Wow, exciting news Jeff, thanks for letting us know about all that.

I'd be interested to know how many people here think Ether, or any other
crypto currency, will vastly outgrow Bitcoin durring the next few years.

Brent

On Thu, Nov 30, 2017 at 12:17 PM, Jeff Davis <jrd1415 at gmail.com> wrote:

> A quick response.
>
> The SEC guy is a cop. That's what the SEC does, looks around for someone
> to slap the cuffs on and "Book 'em, Dano." The ICO phenomenon confronts him
> with activity that he -- actually  the SEC --  would under normal
> circumstances, be responsible for policing. But these are anything but
> normal circumstances. The fact is, that the ICO phenomenon is unhackable,
> uncrashable, and uncontrollable. When I say uncontrollable I mean that the
> SEC is jurisdictionally constrained. It is the SEC of the United States,
> not the SEC of the world. Consequently any jurisdiction that decides to
> allow the unregulated, wild west ICO activity  is free to do so. And it
> only takes one. Among the two hundred Sovereign Nations there are bound to
> be plenty that will want the profits that will come to them by their
> sponsorship of an ICO "sanctuary". Switzerland, Malta, and Singapore are
> already halfway there.
>
> Stathis is right when he says, "There are no rules at all."   And the SEC
> cop mentality can't handle that kind of freedom. The single greatest
> sin/crime to the authoritarian mindset is a challenge to their power. And
> the ICO phenomena is a great big "f*** you" to the authoritarian mindset.
> No surprise therefor, that the "ex-cop" hates it and that the New York
> Times publishes his point of view.
>
> Stathis is also correct when he says that a very substantial fraction of
> the ICOs are well, let's just say, not serious. That said, nobody is
> holding a gun to anybody's head to get them to fork over their money. It's
> all voluntary. It's freedom. It's a Libertarian ideal. It's caveat emptor.
> It's "Be a big boy now, grow up, and look out for yourself, smartly". Which
> is why I find it a bit puzzling that more folks on the list aren't
> supportive of this global, free market entrepreneurialism.
>
> Okay, moving right along.
>
> Napster got shut down because it was centralized. BitTorrent took over,
> and has not been shut down because it's not centralized.
>
> The network that supports cryptocurrencies is also decentralized.  It's a
> ***distributed*** Network, and can't be shut down. Certainly, it can be
> shut down locally. but since it's global, that means that -- absent a total
> crash of the internet, it can't be shut down. And that means that anyone
> with the price of a cup of coffee can issue their own money on the Ethereum
> network, and sell that money, and that they can't be shut down.
>
> Print your own currency, generate a "wallet"(ie account) specifically for
> your currency, mount it on an exchange, schedule a sale, advertise your
> project, and become your own internet entrepreneur.  All for the price of a
> cup of coffee.
>
> Check out proof.com, they've made the process turn-key.
>
> That's what the ICO phenomenon makes possible. As an example of the
> radical nature of this development, I give you Elon Musk. He had to code
> PayPal, build a company worth billions of dollars, and then sell his stake
> for hundreds of millions of dollars, in order to have the resources to
> begin to work on the things he really wanted to do: electric cars, Mars
> colony, Etc.   Now, all you need is the price of a cup of coffee.
>
> My venture, Pathfinder Capital, from the start, took the approach that
> established companies would be unwilling to accept the risk associated with
> the unregulated wild west form of ICO. They would wait for regulatory
> safety before taking advantage of the ICO funding opportunity. Pathfinder
> is putting together a program to provide them with that safety. That will
> unlock the funding needs of 1.2 trillion dollars worth of small and
> medium-sized tech companies with equity currently trapped in VC portfolios.
> Come December, I will be heading to Washington with my investment banker
> partner to lobby the House Financial Services Committee to create a
> licensing protocol for investment banking in the cryptocurrency space.
>  The creation of a certification process for ICOs -- legalizing them --
> will free-up billions of dollars of currently-trapped equity, turning it
> into liquid investment capital, and -- aspirationally -- fostering an
> economic boom.  Then Pathfinder -- the premier investment bank in the
> crypto space -- yeehah! -- will escort an abundance of clients to
> regululatory safety with SEC-certified, fully compliant ICO funding.
> That's the plan.
>
> As a licensed investment bank, Pathfinder will evaluate individual ICO
> candidates, processing only those that are legitimate, thus aiding the SEC
> and the greater ICO community in policing the ICO space and protecting the
> vulnerable public -- widows and orphans -- from bad actors.
>
> The crypto space is going through a rapid evolutionary process.  To much,
> too dynamic to describe here, even if I knew it all, which i do not.
>
> Interesting times indeed.
>
> And by the way, yes, it's a bubble.  But like the tech bubble which, on
> bursting, left behind the digital world we now live in.  When the crypto
> bubble bursts, it too will leave behind an "upgraded" world economic model.
>
> See you there.
>
> Best, Jeff Davis
>
>           "Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
>                                                     Ray Charles
>
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>
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