Bitcoin Forum

So I live in the USA, New York State.

If I use a VPN to buy into an ICO, will the US Gov't or even New York state government punish me somehow?

Why would they penalize you? Who said we are not suppose to participate in ICO. I'm buying daily without a vpn and I live in USA

IMO, I don’t think the USA government will be able to track since you are using a VPS.  However please do be careful and DO NOT use the VPS to key in private key and sensitive data.

Just don't send the btc from Coinbase and you may not have to use a VPN. The IRS is trying to get details from Coinbase on American bitcoin spending habits.

Don't ever send from an exchange to a ICO.

Never send from exchange to ICO as a rule.

But that wiill be difficult, There is a lot of people from US already cheated the system to participate in ico, that was why some ico already applied the KYC approval to participate in the ico.
It seems you will be fine and will not get any punishment for that. But you will not do it again for sure.

VPS would leave the information?

It's always risky to participate in ICOs when you're from the United States as most of the recent ICOs have a term listed which states that you are not from the United States. Yes you will be anonymous using a VPN to send funds during the ICO but all your trades and token usages should be through the VPN itself or else you're putting yourself at risk.

Just follow the government's rules and you'll be safe mate. There's no point of risking your life into this kind of thing if the penalty is really critical. I'm my self will keep obeying the rules given by the local government instead of breaking and gets punished. If you think Furthermore, life is unfair but well, that's life.

Maybe I am missing something, but everyone here seems to have this backwards. The US government isn't going to come after US citizens who buy coins in an ICO. Why would they? I don't even think there is a law against buying coins.

The law pertains to selling the coins to US citizens, not buying them. If an ICO sells to US citizens, the US government, in all its oppressive fury, can say that the ICO, by selling to US citizens, must comply with US law. Then, they can come down on the ICO founders, destroy them, and take all their money. In the name of justice, of course. It's the American way.

So, naturally, ICOs may not want to do business with US citizens, as they don't want to be subject to draconian US laws. That's why they won't sell to you. They would like your money, but it's just safer to avoid Americans altogether. European banks have been cutting loose their US customers for years now, for similar reasons, making life for US expats nearly impossible.

By lying about who you are, you are exposing an innocent start-up company to the risk of US law destroying them. I suppose that, if they found out, you might be guilty of some kind of breach of contract. It would depend on the laws of the country they are based in, and that would be civil matter anyway - not a criminal matter.

The US government, in fact, might be thrilled by you buying into such an ICO. It gives them an excuse to go after the start-up, squash them and take their money.

No, they can't penalize you, once you use a VPN you become invisible and nobody can see what you did, not even your ISP, SEC, FBI, CIA.

*Sarcasm off*

They can track you if they want to, regardless of using a VPS or not. Id advice not to buy if its against the law, you might get into trouble.

 ??? US block ICO. Hear China block ICO. I think this is happen only in Asia.  :-[

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ktorpey/2017/08/31/former-sec-attorney-explains-which-ethereum-icos-will-be-targeted-with-regulatory-action/#6f19e4c9eaf7

Still looking for clarity on this. 


If a person is not an accredited investor at the time they invest in the ICO, then can the SEC punish the person?


Yep, whistleblower bounty, as referenced in the Forbes article above. 


So can a non-accredited investor who is a US citizen get Estonian E-residency and from that account, invest in ICO's?  https://e-resident.gov.ee/ (https://e-resident.gov.ee/)


Def don't want to lie.  This is why I'm doing my due diligence now. 

Not all ICOs are securities (although most probably are based on SEC's broad statement), even then participation as a citizen is less a concern for the individual as much as it could be for the development team (soliciting illegal securities is a no-no).

With how the blockchain works it would be INSANELY laborious for the IRS/NSA/ETC... to investigate or even identify an individual citizen who holds illegal ICO securities tokens, and I highly doubt they'd give enough of a crap to try to do it even if it was relatively easy unless that individual was a whale (6 digit and up transactions/holdings).

The real takeaway I got from the recent announcements is US citizens shouldn't (or are at least discouraged strongly) from participating in ICOs, especially those of a fund/dividend model design, but the real warning read to me more that they say that because the citizen investore would have little if any recourse to recover their funds or even claim securities fraud at this time.

I'm sure there's work being done at very high levels to understand what this all means and how they WILL eventually regulate it, but right now I think it's just very much a buyer beware situation.

icos are just protecting themselves from restrictive US regulations, shouldnt effect buyers at all

Governments are fucked anyway. I say you do whatever you want and enjoy the ride. If someone tries to shake you down deal with it then

I don't think it's illegal for citizens, more like it's illegal for icos to sell to US citizens who not accredited investors.

You can't hide your ID, because the team will ask your KYC, and they will prevent you buying if they know you are  from US.

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2017-131

"The Report confirms that issuers of distributed ledger or blockchain technology-based securities must register offers and sales of such securities unless a valid exemption applies. Those participating in unregistered offerings also may be liable for violations of the securities laws"

The SEC-controlled projects will not allow USA investors to participate in their projects, and there are some Exchanges that have banned VPS from the USA. The government will not penalize you personally, but perhaps that project will have legal problems and the SEC will intervene

Still, this is mainly only relevent in the later stages and if they host their own platform.

If they are tradable on say the ethereum or waves chain, no ID verification is required.

Bloody hell.  Thanks for sharing that link.

Here's a quote from the full SEC text found at: https://www.sec.gov/litigation/investreport/34-81207.pdf

Anyone that is looking to still participate in upcoming ICO's like Kyber, Enigma, Red Pulse etc, but have problems regarding location restrictions, please consider using our investment service.
For more information, visit http://icobroker.trade/ (http://icobroker.trade/)

It's even bloodier than that:

Are Most Cryptocurrencies Doomed to Collapse — because they’re “ICO-issued”? (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2145300)

Questions like this one are a proof for me that there is a real need for anonymous ICOs. Also most of the coins should implement anonymous features like ring sig or zerocoin as default features to prevent government regulations.

I live in a country that hates freedom in East Europe but when I turn on TV all I hear is America is land of the free, are you trying to say that is not true?

Freedom in the USA is over hyped, imho.

everyone needs to ignore Traxo for spreading FUD on purpose... he posts his link in every thread... once was enough

he is trying to spread epic FEAR into people!

As far as I know, some ICO projects will refuse American citizens to join in by show a highlighted reminder on their ICO instructions, and the American IP will be banned to login in.

The article linked makes some solid rational points.   As an Early Adoptor, I still believe in doing Due Diligence regarding emerging investment opportunities.  The article provides level headed rational arguments worthy of consideration before putting one's hard earned money into ICO's.

Yes, but he created his own thread about it, and now posted it in every semi relevant topic, which is too much energy input for not to gain something... his thread was enough, this is fear spreading on purpose!

You accuse me of spreading FUD, although you agree with his blog:

---

Of course I have.
And you are most welcome to refute the blog there (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2145300) (which I very much doubt you will, seeing that you actually agree with some of the points therein).


And are you not wasting too much energy for not to gain something?
You are obviously against the full disclosure so you can profit of the uninformed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory), because you bought "ICO-issued" token, am I not correct?


Not enough when profiteers are inviting others to ignore my posts.

Readers should be able to see the information I've linked to, and decide for themselves.


PS:
Thanks for dragging us in the crab bucket (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality) once again...

No, but it will punish the issuers that sell to you.

If you are using anything for the purpose of hiding money from the IRS or the purpose of defrauding, then you are in a bad place. There is currently nothing wrong with buying into an ICO and there would be no good reason to use a VPS. The exchange or site that you use to buy the ICO tokens may have a policy against it and you likely agreed to it in the terms and conditions, which could mean that you spent money only to have your account banned, locked and the funds kept.

The government is only going to go after people who don't pay taxes properly (if they can prove it). The SEC laws exist to protect investors. The reason most ICOs don't want US investors is because they don't want the SEC scrutinizing their project.

Many ICOs nowadays like Kyber and Cindicator is using KYC, so it doesn't matter if you use VPN
or not as you have to provide your identity anway

yeah, vpn won't solve this problem, KYC will refuse the US citizens, including Chinese Mainland now, only can you have other countries' indentification or ertrust others can you participate in

Anyone looking to get in with Cindicator, have a look at our services offered here: http://icobroker.trade/
The investment cap is fairly low, so we might reach maximum soon.

Well on December 1st, 2014, Estonia opened this platform to the rest of the world. For just €100, you can become an Estonian e-Resident, with a similar ID card and some rights to open a business and bank account in Estonia (and the EU).

Hey Guys,

Is it not possible for the US gov to track down while filing down the taxes ? they may look at the source of the transaction.... any comments........

As a US citizen you can still invest in ICOs that aren’t considered securities in the eyes of the SEC. Unless the ICO creators are too paranoid to allow it anyway and have a KYC procedure.

Nothing is impossible nowadays, even if you use vpn's there is always a way to track your address, so if you are not careful enough government can really penalize you. They can even penalize you more for using VPN. A lot technology has been invented to counter act VPN's so I am sure US gov. Has always a way to track it citizens.

US people can bypass using a quality vpn but they might get stuck in KYC procedures if the ICO is offering because they cant provide a different nationality document. If they make huge gains then redirected tax authorities will also question them about the source of the income.

KYC verification is pretty easy to dodge, all that the person needs is the proper tampered documents.
I don't know much about it other than that though.

Komodo Coin Already has the answer to this question and is about to launch its first decentralized ICO (DICO)

Check them out going to be the altcoin of 2018.

https://komodoplatform.com

The government will not punish you for investing in a ICO. They will punish the company. The regulations are there to protect YOU.

There is no law that says you can't buy into an ico.

The reason why ico's exlude americans is because the SEC classifies most ICOs as securities.
As such, the company itself is subject to various regulations and even potential obligatory reporting of their investors.
Basically, it is too much of a hassle for a company to deal with it and they don't need american money anyway so they ban us investors.

You yourself, will never be punished for investing.
However you can be penalized for not reporting your assets when you file your taxes.
Tax evasion is a serious crime and if you ever get audited, that is one giant shitshow.

If there is an ico you want to invest in, but they exclude us citizens, then you can either have someone but them for you, or sometimes you can even contact the dev team directly to work things out (only if you are willing to put in a substantial sum, we are talking 75k usd and up).
Of course, there are so many icos the easiest thing would be to find one that allows us citizens.

Yes,but what if you bought fake passports from these fake id forgery websites?will these ICOs know if you are the person you are claiming to be?if he uses VPN services plus fake passport from other countries no one will ever know even these ITs from ICOs.

But if i were you do not cheat for your own safety because you will questioned by the IRS if you have a lot of money.

If you are sitting through one encryption system then there is easy to calculate where you are and you can be punished. you should use more protection. ;)

As a lot of restrictions towards USA citizens in participation into ICO abroad from their main country, we used to see a lot of users trying to overpass this situationusing different methods of VPN and intracable navigators. That restriction is always made by un-trust projects or projects established in countries where no rights for non-citizens investors. I suggest you not using a VPN but not participate in those ICO so your government can defend you in most cases.

Hi!
EU citizen participating in ICOs.
Get in touch on cryptoassistent@gmail.com or https://t.me/cryptolighter if you need some help.