Bitcoin Forum

This Howeycoin move made by the SEC is very perplexing. What are they doing? I reckon it might be an acceptance in their inability, and knowing that they cannot do anything to shut down the cryptospace, scam ICOs included.

If really true then real disruption is about to come.

https://media.coindesk.com/uploads/2016/11/IMG_2370.jpg

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission wants to ensure investors can identify fraudulent initial coin offerings - even if it has to launch its own to do so.

The regulator announced Wednesday it has launched a mock ICO called HoweyCoin, presumably named after the Howey Test, which "touts an all too good to be true investment opportunity."

However, the company notes, "the offer isn't real." Users who try to invest in the token sale will instead be redirected to the regulator's education tools, which are aimed at pointing out the signs of fraudulent token sales.

Read the full article https://www.coindesk.com/the-sec-just-launched-a-fake-ico-website-to-educate-investors/

I think it's something they should have done a lot earlier, showing people that a fancy wordpress website that claims it will solve all the problems in the world with their hakunamombumanana token can be a scam.
And I must say that I've seen worse presentations from some ICOs.

Hopefully at least a few suckers will get a wake up call by this and not ended like thousands have before.
Education usually solves a lot of problems.

That is a smart move made by U.S. SEC this time around. I believe the education will cut across all angles pertaining to ICO investing such as how participants will decipher good ICOs from the scam ICOs by running some checks on their own and not just a mere piece of advice.

I think this was a good idea and I'm glad to see the SEC is warning the public about ICO scams. It should not negatively affect legitimate ICOs that have resources for their team and the ones that are not making outrageous claims about returns. The campaign is not really any different than campaigns to warn against real estate scams or scams that commonly target the elderly.

If this thing being presented earlier then most people do really have the idea or knowledgeable on how to point out a potential scam project or sale but wondering on what are the things they would able to educate for those people who are being redirected.
If people are mostly aware or wise enough to detect frauds then we would able to see much lesser number of altcoins in the market because most of them will fail into the initial stages.

@stompix. Maybe, but it appears that the SEC has run out of better ideas on how to solve the problem. They used to act from a position of power. What happened? Are they self-deprecating?

@stomachgrowls. If this was done earlier, would it have stopped some people from investing in Ethereum? ETH does not pass the Howey test.