Bitcoin Forum

There's an issue with U.S citizens participation in ICO's because of SEC.

Maybe it's possible to present the ICO in a such way that it doesn't violate the U.S law? From my perspective, ICO's are nothing less than a kickstarter and kickstarters are legal.

As you guys got much more experience than me in this field, I'd like to know your opinion.

Thank you :)

Nothing much can be done. Plus, why should ICOs care? Whether money go to the ICO or afterwards the money flood on the exchanges it is the same thing. Price goes up.

It can be. People just have to think outside the box. Easier said than done, I know.

It doesn't has to be in the form of an ICO like we all know, it can be something else.

It depends on your marketing team. An ICO can be established anywhere and can target any specific market. Try to make an idea that the US citizen would be interested in that way you can make an ICO for a specific target.

If you provide an ICO service to an American citizen, you may face a problem with American law, so it's not a wise decision, friend.

You may be able to ban American IP participation, so when American citizens want to participate, they can only use VPNS, so they avoid the issue of the law.

Indeed. But not if it's made totally legal. For example: mask it as something else but have the same principle as an ICO in the end.


That's not an issue. The issue is the law of participation in ICO's for U.S citizens.

Bump. Still looking for ideas!

Thank you.

ICO's are available for US citizens, they're just not legal. Don't kid yourself, anyone tech savvy enough to use cryptocurrency is also smart enough to use a proxy. US citizens invest in ICO's all the time.

Are ICOs actually illegal?  I thought the reason that ICOs aren't made available is because the SEC has regulations on who is an accredited investor that is able to participate in such offerings (such as IPOs).  For whoever is managing the ICO, it is just easier to exclude US users instead of trying to verify those who are eligible.

Yes, you are correct, ICOs are legal for accredited investors to invest in. The main issue is that most people don't satisfy the requirements of $1M net worth (excluding permanent residence) or three years of income greater than $200K.

Yeah correct, I have seen few ICO project that team members and owners are particularly from US. Even if you are a law abiding citizen or whatever you can do what you want if you know how to work things around. I suppose you don't really know how crypto works.

Bolded the important part.  Same restrictions apply if you offer shares outside the US too, and if you IPO inside US you have to follow strict rules on disclosure, its easier just to not offer to US citizens.  If you ever read the risk assessments that accompany IPOs you'd think they were trying to talk you out of investment  :D  Similar declarations for cryptocoins...  :o

ICOs are not exactly like Kickstarters, because with Kickstarters you donate money and may get a reward in return. With ICOs you get tokens, some of which can give dividends. When they do they are investments and fall under SEC regulations. If the tokens don't give dividends they are called utility tokens, in theory they should be OK because they aren't supposed to fluctuate in price, but here it gets murky.

As I said clearly you can walk your things around. Everything can be faked, I am not saying this is a good solution. But since Bitcoin or cryptocurrency is considered as anonymous then why you would worry?

First of all you can move to other country or just participate in any ico what dont need verification. Nobody will know because its cryptoworld, thats why its attractive.

you would need to spend several million dollars on compliance and kyc/aml stuff before they'd even dream of permitting it, and even after all that there are a bunch of laws you probably don't know about that they'd spring on you.

if americans don't like it, and i don't blame them, then they should stand for congress and get it changed.

Yeah, I believe in a saying that if there's a will there's a way. LOL I wouldn't be worrying the laws too much, A lot of ICO that are based in US without having any problems at all.