Bitcoin Forum

Found an interesting article on hackermoon, citing Howey Test "the SEC is pursuing American ICO operators who offer a bounty program."
Does any one know more about this?

It depends. You should search for "Howey Test" It's a test from the Supreme court. There is everything you need to know about it. I can't give an explanation myself because as a non-US resident it's difficult to get it. But from what I understand they prefer to look at what happens with these investments, so I think it depends if the project becomes successful...

Edit: see about the "Howey Test"
http://consumer.findlaw.com/securities-law/what-is-the-howey-test.html
and
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=87126360-7bc3-4f08-821b-1e37660c0f64

Yeag, but I just don't see how it influences bounty campaigns..

It's hard to get the whole picture out of this information but I think this is not aimed against bounty programs but it's about one particular case and probably some misuse that has happened. So I don't think this is something to panic and currently also can't see any connection to bounty campaigns or bad influence on them.

That was on my mind too, i'm sure there is a misconduct of the owner that's why they have to sue him. Most of the ICOs today are fraud and it is always a risk as an investor and this is the worst part, being scammed. If the owner had no problem at all of running their ICO then there's no pursuing going to happen once they are trustworthy from the start.

I know that they are completely against the gambling site with the bitcoin payment and everyone may see that in the last year December time. Since the passes many regulations on using the bitcoin wallet and etc...
Bounty programs are banned in the South Korea and China but other places like US and UK all never list the any regulations to press release as of now.
I hope that information shared is perfect as I have checked in online.

Actually the SEC have decided to scrap down the idea of people investing in ICO claiming that they are quite harmful in terms of shadiness and some of them even end up as scam. This in itself makes all the bounty hunters from US ineligible to hold bounty tokens in itself. But now with this new news regarding government authorities itself approaching ICO to ban in all bounties is quite weird. If there is slightest of truth in this news there is going to be a lot of FUD in market. 

US Govt. restrict US citizens to invest in ICO's, therefore they got automatically banned to participate in ICO's. But the bounty which is paying in BTC, ETH etc provide US citizens a chance to participate. US govt. has taken this decision keeping the welfare of the investors in mind, as most of ICO's came out as a scam and hence Investors lost all their money in it.

Yes, Bounties are just for promotional activities and now a days most of the companies are taking KYC documents for bounty distribution. So it means lawyers are working in the background, whenever government access they will provide the legit information to the governments.

I did not no anything about this but I think it has always sec ways of finding error with anything related to cryptocurrencies.
I do believe that some people are going to abandon their bounty because of this but the wise one are going to hold unto any bounty their are participating currently.