Bitcoin Forum

There's lots of scammers and legal problems with starting a SE on BTC. But why shouldn't there be a regulated stock exchange? We could call it ARSE. It'll be reported to the SEC and security issuers will have liability.

Advantages:
- No legal problems like GLBSE
- Safer due to regulation and legal liabilities
- Better security, real company behind it

Would anyone want ARSE?

Current US securities law makes it prohibitively expensive.  Registering a security has costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars (note that isn't the offering that is the additional cost), requires a 42 page filing with the SEC, hundreds of hours of due diligence and legal fees.  So it really only makes sense when raising tens of millions in equity.  


http://www.cringely.com/wp-content/uploads/Screen-Shot-2012-09-04-at-12.24.31-PM.png
What is wrong with this chart?  Is small biz is the growth engine for job creation what do you think the net result of inability to raise "small" ($1M to $10M) amounts of capital would be on a major economy?

There are "Reg D" exceptions but they generally require shares to be untradable for 12-24 months and require significant fees to get the restriction removed.

So while you could in theory open a bitcoin based brokerage it isn't going to be useful for anything a small biz would need.  Even raising $10M in equity is prohibitive under the the current regulatory system, and $1M defacto impossible, so forget about $100K or $10K GLBSE IPOs.   The jobs act (crowdfunding rules) will make it EASIER to RAISE equity but the restrictions on trading are unlikely to be removed.

Maybe offshore ...  

Okay, the regulatory costs makes it impossible basically. But I've got a few other ideas:

Kickstarter-like - back projects without actually owning the company, but you get rewards which might be a share of the profits. Can fund new BTC ventures

Decentralized trading: A site that uses cryptography to verify the ownership of items. People can then trade them on IRC, forums, etc. Offerbook so you can easily find a buyer / seller.

Just throwing out ideas for bitcoin..

Several such projects already exist. They aren't very active, though. I guess the problem lies in trust, or lack of thereof.

Basically, organizer needs to be really serious about it, and he needs to find some serious projects.


This can be done using smart property/colored coins. There is no need for a site as ownership can be securely identified by client software.

A web site could, perhaps, act as a directory, i.e. a place where people can find information on particular property/coins.