Bitcoin Forum

Some countries don't allow people to invest in ICOs. Why is that? They don't allow ICO that issues dividends and represents the shares of a company, or they just ban all the ICOs?

they ban all ICOs,
the reason is very simple which are to prevent their citizen from a fraud attempt and to keep their investor interest.
do not you think it's funny to see your citizen and investor suffer due to an unknown investment ?
that is why some countries banned the ICOs and i will do the same because most of them did not deliver what they promised to us

Its weird. In my country ICO is not banned but if its banned i will use VPN or other solutions to invest in ICO . I have the freedom to lose my money.

Simple,the governments don't get to make a penny from it while people make lot of money in terms of investment and returns.
Specifically speaking not all the countries care only the highly commercialised democratic evil America and China have those rules applied last time I checked.Having said that,if you want to invest in a particular coin you can always do that with keeping enough anonymity.

almost all the countries that matter enough have already banned ICOs or are in the process of banning them. other countries don't look at ICOs kindly and that is because they say ICO is a fund raising and they are raising funds illegally since they are scamming people and return nothing. they are fake people calling themselves "company" which raise a lot of money this way and that is not legal thing to do in any country.

indeed this increasing governmental banning toward the up rising waves of ico's has become annoying, these governments claimed that they simply can not track the flow of currencies and their resources but  come on the future is here i am with regulation but i refuse the ban.

So in these countries is illegal to invest in ICOs but it's legal to buy/trade tokens once they are in exchanges, right?

They cannot track anybody but the parent organisation.It's all a nice political game to be honest.They want  to make money out of ICO's too.

What about the legit companies ? Fake or Not it's not upto the government to decide.People should have their freedom should they choose to invest their money with a particular company.

Some countries want to control the tax evasion. Sometimes, it's to protect consumers to buy tokens because there are so many project without a real future.

i am sure it's a just temporary ban because governments wants to protect their citizens!

they wants more traceability that allow them to tax profits made from ICO

i do prefer your statement also. since other countries that bans ICO's considered those things are illegal, and to think that it has a scary system and the way they attract investors its the most thing that makes government worried, and to add more that they could just easily run with the money after the ICO.

To my understanding most that ban ICOs are doing it because they are very under regulated and so investors are very much under risk, they ban ICOs therefore to protect their citizens who want to invest.

They are considered as securities by some countries, so if you are not authorized to deliver securities, you are in a way that im not really exactly how, being part of illegal activity (it should be the people hosting the ICO, not the ones buying it in my opinion). The smartest people saw this coming a long time ago.

But there will always ways to circumvent this, so ICOs aren't going to stop. Just check from where the ICO is being hosted, and if you are sure that the spot allows for ICOs then go for it. Use an VPN as needed to circumvent any local limitations if needed.

Lots of ico in early this year can able to raise the fund with only white paper and website then after successful ico most of the project become disaster so in my view legalising ico will protect investors. So I am also welcoming the current move countries making regulation towards legalising ico.

That's the stated reason, but I highly doubt it's to protect the citizens.  ICO's take control away from government agencies like the US's Security & Exchange Commission (SEC.)  The SEC sets all the regulations for IPO's and alos charge registration and license fees.  Then along comes a group of people who launch an ICO and bypasses their regulations completely.

Secondly, ICO's allow the common person to invest in projects whereas you have to meet a high income criteria to invest in venture capital.  Again this is government agencies losing power.

In the US, the SEC was formed from a belief that the Blue Sky Laws were not being enforced.  These laws were aimed at protecting private investors, providing causes of action against securities fraud.  That was almost 100 years ago, though, and has obviously morphed over time.  That said, the initial desire was and is to protect investors.  Also, as was quoted in the recent Ethereal SF Summit, regulation is a sign that something is doing well.  Most of us already knew this though  ;)

It's because some ICOs have been 100% scam ... i.e., the scammer collected a bunch of Etherium or Bitcoin and disappeared.  

But even if that were not the case, most governments regulate "investments" in all their forms, so once ICOs got on their radar, many governments have decided to take action.  I think most goverments will allow ICOs once regulation authority is in place.

Because they compete with initial public offerings, which are highly regulated and very expensive to do. So it’s not fair to call something a “token” (which gives you even less rights than a traditional share which at least gives you some ownership rights) and not have to comply with securities laws instead of calling it a security and having to go through the regulatory process.

Initial public offerings are regulated to protect investors from frauds and scams. Government thinks small investors are too stupid to protect themselves. It started after the Great Depression in 1933-1934 so maybe the laws had a point at that time but they’re very outdated now.

some of country giving permission to cryptocurrencies and ico and some of the other country is forbidden. the government give their protection to their citizen to not getting scam by the ico which can not proof the legality of the project. many of ico which has been launch need to have advisor team and financial fund to protect the fund from the investor so they can feel safe. the country and the government is only want to protect their citizen from the programs that want to running the investor money.

It's just a rule. Laws are everywhere and it's just how countries want to run their country. Some countries seem to think that all ICOS are scams and wil ljust take away from people's savings, others justify their actions from labelling ICOs as unregulated securities, there's a bunch of reasons.

It depends on the country. Some countries ban ICOs outright, some just ban the purchasing.

If you aren't in the listed accepted countries it's better to stay away from any ICOs.

They are worrying about the more money will go to the ico and they don't get money again from the investors. Some country just try to protect the money and that doesn't allow the money to go to outside from their country.

As many of the ICOs are mostly as scam and many people are falling into the scam so government discourages people to invest in ICOs and China has even banned all ICOs because they are unregulated and many of them are scam.But not all countries has banned ICOs.With regulation of ICOs i am sure that ICOs would be more successful as many fail coins and scam coins would be not passed.

I might add to this also that the Howey test is an application of the law that applies to those OFFERING the securities and does not apply to those ACCEPTING the securities. And, even if the token was considered a security under Howey, then there are processes by which it might still be offered if all of the regulatory requirements for issuing the security were in compliance.

They don't like random people who comes out of nowhere from a third party country ending up cheating the investors from their country. There is a mindset in the government's mind that ICOS are only meant to to scam people. The security exchanges of those countries are keeping a close eye on crytpo related events happening.

There have been a real problem of money flowing out of CHina with a lot of chinese investors putting money into various ICO's. This is imo one of the reasons that few countries have banned its citizens from investing in ICO's.

They don't let icos cause ico schemes are very problematic/shadowy. Governments want to be sure their citizens' money is safe. This is very bad legality issue.

If the state simply prohibits the conduct of ICO and does nothing to eliminate risks in its conduct and protect the rights of investors with the subsequent resumption of this type of activity, this indicates the inefficiency of such a state. Indeed, everyone has the right to choose and dispose of their funds. Therefore, every citizen has the right to invest in the ICO, even if it subsequently turns out to be fraud.

which country do you live? some ico's arent actually restricted or prohibited on most countries. ico's are mostly online so i dont think that the government holds it   or they can add a law about it although i believe that the main reason why they are banning ico's is  because most of them are scam and will likely turn to scam someday, basing on the ico these days, there were only few are only legit with real projects to offer to the public.

They are fascist&communist like most governments destroying peoples freedom.

In our China, ico is illegal financing, illegal, in fact, think about it, ico is not a misappropriating? Many ico probability is a liar.
 ;D ;D ;D

Generally, they ban all ICOs. I think, in some respects, the banning of ICOs is necessary. It helps new investors won't lose money and ban scammers. But I also think that let things happen naturally, people will learn from themselves.

Some country ban ICO because they think ICO can be fraud, scam, and possible any money laundry action. So now very important any regulation in ICO to proctect investor and cryptocurrency community around the world.

If an ICO offers a dividend - it will instantly be classified as a "share". This means its a security and not a cryptocurrency. 99% of all countries have "securities laws" in place. That ICO then will automatically fall under those laws if it offers a dividend.

You said true , China and Korea like countries made rules to regulate the system of ICOs in Thier country because they find it not much better thing  for the people as an option of investment Because the answer is simple , we can see lots of ICOs are coming and going and also we can see most of them are better also but few of them are not legit ( scam like system  , here it would be better to. Give the example of indocoin ) , that how they run away after the investment .
So I think those countries who don't want allow ICOs in Thier countries is better for them to keep away .
But still here we can take risk to invest in every ICO project ( but first make simple analysis whether the project has any basic support or not to check whether the project of ICOs is legit or not ) and overall get profit is a better option and I am doing the same .

They just want to receive money from this ICO. So they want to receive taxes. And they can name it with difficult words, but still this is just about taxes!