Bitcoin Forum

I would like to propose that ICOs be removed from the Alternate Currencies forum.

1.). These tokens are not blockchains.

2.). These tokens often have absolutely nothing to do with Cryptocurrency.  For instance one might be a company selling a third of it's start up ventures with a promise to use a third of profits to buy back tokens on exchanges.

3.).  Tokens have essentially turned into a way to bypass the SEC.  I am not talking about alternate blockchain presales with the intent of launching an alternate currency run thru an exchange.  I'm talking about tokens that are not their own blockchain, have no intent on being their own blockchain, are not really even ICOs as they aren't a coin.

I get that alternate currency area of the forums has always been the redheaded stepchild.  But I think banning ICOs that are not and have no intention of being their own chain would be consistent with the forum discussion topic guidelines.

I think that someone had already proposed something similar recently. I can't find the link though.

Correct.

Technically if they are tokens issued on some currency, then they have something with cryptocurrency.

99% of the ICOs are useless scams, yes. I wonder whether SEC would put pressure on theymos, as this forum is pretty much one of the mediums facilitating most of these sales (that is, once they start cracking down on them).

I would support it just for the mere fact it will get rid of shitcoin ICO spam from signature campaigns. Hundreds of users per campaign and not a single check being done about them. It's not uncommon to find 50+ users all belonging to the same person posting away one after the other or copying and pasting content. Getting tired of it.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2009415.0


Read somewhere that the SEC has stated they're illegal (no shit) and not to be used by US citizens. I think it's only a matter of time before this forum gets some heat from some sort of scam that was promoted here.

Since bitcointalk has never been about preventing scams I would like to clarify I AM NOT advocating "doing a quick search to see if an ICO is legitimate" but more of "is this its own blockchain or will be its own blockchain?  No?  Spam/trash"

As a way if making alternate currencies about that vs this hoard of ICO tokens that have absolutely nothing to do with alternative blockchains.

I'm sure theymos would comply with any subpoena he receives. I can't imagine his responsibility goes any further than that.

Bitcoin Savings and Trust being a good example of how this would be handled.

Be removed altogether or be contained in a dedicated sub-forum? Complete removal would surely hurt the revenue stream wouldn't it?
Not that I am participating in any ICOs anyways.

Either is fine with me honestly.  I suspect their own forum would turn into something like the altcoin announcements.  Ignored.  It just seems severely off topic per the current board definition.  I am interested in blockchains.  Ponzi ICO #219 not so much.

I suspect most people in the space feel the same.  An off topic subject has flooded the forum to pump speculations that have NOTHING TO DO with blockchains.  I see literally no downside to banning the ones that are not funding alternate blockchains.  They've essentially hijacked alternate blockchain forum to pump shit that has nothing to do with Cryptocurrencies.

Make them their own forum or ban them all together is my preference.  I don't see how their revenue stream tied to spamming off topic in a cryptocurrency forum is our problem.

That's the one.

If you classify the tokens as securities, then they are definitely illegal sales.

I was thinking more in the lines of: Could or would the SEC force theymos to ban any thread regarding a token sale on the forum.

That would bring up some serious First Amendment issues. Furthermore, the SEC only has the authority to bring civil action, so this would seem very unlikely.

I sort of agree but would rather see all ICO's separated from the real currencies.
And currencies vs schemes too !

This topic makes me think of ledgers.

theymos will have to comply with US govt request(s) whenever they are submitted.
And i have propose lots since 2013 loudly some of the forum hacks and down times here may have been time for the owner to back up the entire database and hand it to the fed's.

Remember this ? (it mentions "a forum")

https://www.sec.gov/investor/alerts/ia_virtualcurrencies.pdf

http://i65.tinypic.com/35d2536.jpg

It begins !

http://i65.tinypic.com/2dua784.jpg

People can call them whatever they want but it doesn't change what they are. You could operate a ponzi scheme using payment in potatoes but it's still a Ponzi at the end of the day and wouldn't stop people from being prosecuted. With crypto or tokens it just seems to be an easier way of running such schemes and being able to get a way with it due to lack or regulation and the relative anonymity of it but this surely wont be the case for ever.


I think they will issue some sort of warning or threat eventually. I don't know what makes this forum immune from essentially hosting ponzis etc but I'm surprised there hasn't been any heat from them yet (or maybe there has and from a legal standpoint the forum is safe... or we will get into trouble at one point).

See my comment right before yours ?
That is warning from years ago i posted here in the Bitcoin section right when it was released.
The SEC and FiNCEN and other US govt agencies considers this shit scammy ass bullshit.
Which is why they fined Ripple.
Why they went to court to get Coinbase to divulge mass records etc.

I think it's possible the SEC looks at this mess and has decided morons who think government regulators are the ultimate scum of the earth giving their money away to scammers the SEC normally prosecutes is good PR for them.

Ethereum is in fact not a standard crypto-currency but rather the fuel of a platform but isn't it an altcoin ? The tokens run on the blockchain, they are just using another established one, and thus they are crypto-currencies. Anything that is a crypto-currency and not Bitcoin is an altcoin, so it has its place there.

At worst, they could be moved to another forum if they dominate the subforum too much (a la Investor-based Games).

They are based on cryptocurrencies to some degree, and even if they are not actual cryptocurrencies they seem to be of interest to forum members.

I am most concerned about the forum advertising for these ICOs as I think this has the most potential to land the forum in hot water.

In RE: the OP/topic, I understand that most of the ICOs use the etherum blockchain to transfer ownership between users, so they belong in the altcoin section as much as any other similar token would.

I don't see why ICOs are allowed here almost at all. What value do they bring to anyone here really, especially when they don't even have a blockchain or a coin ready.

I understand the value of ideas, but when 98% of them fail or become worth almost nothing, should we really allow them? I also understand the freedom of it, if we banned it it would be censorship.

I don't know how to feel about t honestly.

The OP has been specific as to what ICO he is talking about which he stated that those "without blockchains" be banned. In the case of general point of view regarding ICOs, they do bring value in fostering Bitcoin's economy but not as a competitor rather a way to be used to earn bitcoins which I feel no need to enumerate what those are.

So what you are exactly talking about, is it ICO in general or an ICO in specific which the OP mentioned? If ICO in specific like OP mentioned then I agree but if you are talking about ICO in general then no.

Regarding ICO in general, how can we know that they will fail if they are not given the chance to be realized but also we need to filter out those who are real, those who are used to scam, and those who are pointless.

Yeah what this guy says is key.

The forums have never been about trying to filter scams because the mods can't deal with the sheer quantity and even more importantly the definition of "scam" is not definable.  Some people say Ethereum was a scam.  Some people say Dash was a scam.  Some people have said litecoin is a scam.

I am saying it doesn't matter if it's a scam or not.  If it has NOTHING to do with a blockchain but is just a commodified issued token it is a very clear line to draw in the sand to get rid of a lot of this shit that literally has 0 to do with blockchains.

It's like going to a Ford Stock Ticker forum and pushing bitcoin.  It's off topic and doesn't belong in an "alternate BLOCKCHAIN" forum.  If someone is raising money with a presale to launch alternate blockchain #491 that is mined by killing puppies and uploading videos to youtube then I think it's fine.  If they are a token launching "a 20% share in a coffee production business in Peru" without their own blockchain  then by forum definition it is off topic and should be treated as such.

If there was a "General investment forum" for people wanting to invest/gamble their bitcoin in non blockchain ventures then I think that would be on topic.  Or just ban this non cryptocurrency shit all together.  Either is fine.

I'll go with a sub forum option in my opinion as cryptocurrencies evolve we find new spaces are required for different topics and areas, since the original section would get clogged up and it points out to reason to create another subsection addressing the issue that clogs up that space.
Without a blockchain does sounds MLM.

I get your point. The coffee production thing is interesting, because the way you pointed out, this is not at all a blockchain and thus is off-topic, as you pointed it out. However, if we consider this shares in the production facility are registered on the blockchain, I think there is some place for it here. Blockchain is not just altcoins, it can be much more. I think the topic is more on this evolution than something else.

Yes I understand these tokens are issued on the blockchain even though there is no technical or legal way to actually bind "tokens" to those issuing them.  

Like they don't represent shares in a company.  There's no digital or cryptoaphy to enforce this the same way you can know an address is bound to unspent outputs.  It's just some pictures and some dude saying stuff and promising to do things with a token (not a cryptocurrency, not a coin, not an alternate blockchain.)

In other words since ICOs fall outside of the purview of the SEC and development on their offerings have nothing to do with blockchain there's nothing keeping from me from pretending to be Peru farmers, there's nothing to keep real Peru farmers from launching a token claiming they will share profits.  Like none of this has ANYTHING to do with a cryptocurrency.

The link between "well technically this token having nothing to do with cryptocurrency was launched from a blockchain instead of bitmex launching Peruvian Coffee Futures" is as strong as the connection between being able to trade ford stock with bitcoin.

It would be like me going into bitcoin speculation area and demand to pump my pink sheets because "technically there is an exchange that allows me to speculate on stocks with bitcoin".  It would be sheer insanity to allow this.

People pumping shit that has as much to do with blockchains as speculating on Tesla has to do with bitcoin.  Nothing.

Which actually brings me to my next point.  This place is fucking full of scams and everyone knows it.  But from these scams new blockchain ideas arise.  Dash, as shady and terrible it's background is of instamine, changing coin release amounts, master node ponzi scheme.  It brought us masternodes and on chain governance.  

The 70% premine from bytecoin brought us a fully functional and working ring signature code that was forked to something that is likely the best privacy you can find in crypto.

My point being that as long as the scams and the discussions are about blockchains it can lead to the evolution of the crypto market.  We pay a goddamned high price in reputation points by eating noobs alive and spitting them out penniless to make whoever is best at being shady rich as fuck.  And it's not like its a state secret.

Why in the world should we allow those who do nothing with blockchains spend reputation capital for their scams, clog up the forum and do absolutely nothing to contribute towards the evolution of cryptocurrency?  It defies forum definitions, is off topic, does nothing to advance crypto ecosystem or technology.

I would prefer a separate forum for Tokens without their own Blockchain. That would make research a lot easier.

In the long run it would also be great to see more "filters" to better distinguish Token/Coin distributions, such that one could immediately tell if they are buying shares of a company, Tokens that are to be used on a platform, and whatnot.

There's going to be a lot of different models that will need some better form of categorization.

I don't it would be possible to remove ICO's from this forum at all. Bitcointalk is financially supported by ICO's - now we can see ICO advertisements in forum ad spaces. Why they would need to cut off branch on which they are sitting now.
I would agree if ICO's would have their sub-forum, to separate it from usual coins. Because now on Altcoin announcement board we see almost only ICO's.

They don't have to be removed, and shouldn't be removed. But depending on the type of fundraiser, I do believe that there should be different types of forums as well. As is, it's extremely difficult to conduct any market research.

For many years member now here are now adept to those scams not only the ICO's but also other ponzis in the physical world because it has almost the the same schemes. Some users may have different perspectives on this ICO's but nothing it could be done to change those. There are many payments for these schemes but it is just the same what ever it is. Schemers could just find new ways and smarter to hide those facts in plane sight.

Relevant.

Sec rules that token sales / non blockchain ICOs are securities

https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/6pj46w/sec_issues_investigative_report_concluding_dao/

Yes it would. We can easily disallow them and trash their threads. And how is the forum financially supported by icos? They pay absolutely nothing to the forum to post or promote themselves here unless they purchase advertising space and most do not. Most just pre mine a load of worthless tokens and dish them out to anybody who can be bothered to sign up and post the most basic of crap or copy and paste somebody else's responses. The level of spam and issues they contribute to the workload of staff is insane and they should be held responsible for that. If they're not just banned outright they should all have to pay something to advertise here because they shouldn't be allowed to advertise for free (which is crazy in itself) and it certainly shouldn't be at the expense of the forum when they do next to nothing about poor posters.


I really hope they legally get shut down if this forum doesn't do something to stop or restrict them because the people who run them are some of the greediest and laziest people I've come across.

In fact it does generated a big trafic in term of pageviews, and that make forum ads more and more valuable, with price increasing substantially at each round.


So you are requesting an entity totally unpowerful outside the U.S. to mess in the crypto-sphere just because people are raising money ? Investors are not dumb as some may think here. If they invest it means that they want to do it, and I do not find it too fair to go against the will of the people while Bitcoin was created to promote total liberty, for whatever it is.

These icos could disappear tomorrow and the ads on this forum would not diminish at all. In fact, if that happened they'd probably bring in much more money than they already do because many of these icos would then bid on slots as they would have no other option to advertise themselves here.


I'm not requesting it I just hope these get rich quick scammers get what they deserve. Most of these icos have little to nothing to do with crypto or at the most are largely worthless or negative to it. Most are just straight up scams which are nothing but get rich quick schemes to make the operators millionaires. And I would seriously  question the intelligence of a lot of the people that invest in some of this crap because I doubt most of them will deliver on their promises.

And this is a private forum so you don't have total liberty. Look at how much liberty users already get and they abuse it on masse. There have been people caught with 200 alt accounts spamming the same reworded crap one after the other and they got paid to do it by these ico idiots  who don't care as long as their advert is getting spammed all over the forum. Dozens of campaigns pop up every month and do exactly the same so that's why you need some rules to play by sometimes and not just let the scammers and greedy capitalists run rife and unregulated.

If the operator of this private forum lives in the US, or if the forum/domain is hosted/registered in the US, then think he has every right to protect himself and the forum from falling afoul of US law. This includes taking unilateral action to stop these scamming scumbags, even if that might raise First Amendment issues.

Theymos is based in the US and pays US taxes. Not sure where the forum is actually hosted but that will be irrelevant and the forum will certainly be governed by US law. With that being said, as far as I'm aware there don't seem to have been any issues with the ponzis posted here but I wouldn't be surprised if the forum does catch the eye or wrath of some US authority eventually.