Bitcoin Forum

Should government regulate ICO?


I am one those who believe  ICO shouldnt be left for government to regulate.. Governments tend to hate Crypto because it runs contrary to their "style of governance"... Regulation will be viciously abused by government from developing countries.
If Regulation suceeds (without abuse) in Japan or Switzerland, there is no guarantee it will suceed in North Korea, Cuba or Zimbabwe.
Below is a suggestion from one of the forum threads : (I suspect Theymos, the Forum owner thinks along this line or I just misunderstood one of his advert on ICO regulations):




"This things will sort themselves out whether governments are involved  or not. This's probably an opportunity for top notch Regulatory Crypto Company/companies to be launched. The purpose of such Companies will be to thoroughly review ICOs & charge them some fees for certification. ICOs investors can avoid those that do not pass through such Reviews.

The problem with governments regulating ICO is that any ICO that is of threat to them will be labeled as scam and rejected.
Cryptocurrency should be "self-regulating".  The tools are there already unlike 20 years ago when everything was under government control."

Some governments will try to ban it with regulations, but they will fail.

When we are faced with something that can radically change the paradigm of society, there's no regulation can stop the change.

I can agree with that statement because the crypto already built its community without the regulation by the government, that was so suck to sync everything with the government and all of the things about the regulation by the government. In a long time ago the human still alive without the government.

ICOs should definitely be regulated but certainly not by the government, this forum alone is full of it. I think regulating ICOs would be most beneficial to investors, it lessen the risk and the fear of being scammed as they could just look at those that passed this "Regulatory Crypto Company" standards.

If governments regulate ICOs, most probably they want their share too. In this case they will allow any ICO they want and ban any ICO they don't want even that is not a scam.
I don't like governments to play a roll in cryptocurrencies.

Yes ICOs should be regulated by governments. That is not a scary thing, you should know the reasons behind a regulation before criticising it. I think the only thing ICOs need now is regulation.

Wow! Lots of tinfoil hats on these boards  ???

Yes ICOs should probably be regulated and probably by government.

Whoever floated the first idea of commercial entities regulating icos must be really young or have lived under a rock in 2008-2009.

That model was already tried out with mortage backed securities and credit rating agencies.  Issuers of those securities shopped around until a cra was willing to give them a good rating even though they were shit securities. Cras wanted to make $ and not lose clients so they gave everyone who stepped through the door a good rating.

Guess how that ended? Major financial crisis and government has stepped in to regulate CRAs.

Governments are usually too stupid too understand nuances of business they are trying to regulate. Good example of this is online gambling legislation in Europe: for every competent regulation authority (Malta, UK) you can find 10 incompetent ones producing laws that hurts business much more than helps it

Regulations typically:

• impose unnecessary cost
• force people to waste time with bureaucratic nonsense

Also, regulations and anonymity typically doesn't work well together. So another cost of regulations would be a loss of anonymity.

how can it be regulated but not by governments have some 3rd party involved and they decide what and what kind of fees will that cost the ICOs

Not only ICOs. We should not leave anything for Goverments to rule.

There is no point in regulating ICO's. IPO's are just as bad.

It should be up to the investor to take the risk whether he/she wants to put money into an ICO. Always do proper background checks on the team, company due diligence, project analysis, etc.

ICOs is so much like gambling in now condition, it has simple rules, you interest you join and take the risk, you don't want just leave it, that's it, except that who want "Investor Safety", that's BS, in crypto world no one is safe if its not come from yourself decision. Do you think if you invest to a project it "MUST" be sucessful later ? everything is unpredictable, so i think government doesn't need to involve in this situation, let this people do with their own way

No one can regulate ICO, crypto is a decentralized currency. Exchange might refusing to list ICO due to this regulation but that is about it.

It will be weird if government regulated ICOs... It's decentralized money so no one should be able to regulate it

even if government have the right to regulate ICO, how? they have no control over such thing and the participans of an ICO is spreading widely from many parts of the world.
but if ICO can be regulated furthermore in order to make better ICO, it's not wrong.

ico are regulated in some country like they regulate crypto, i think if they don't regulate altcoin at all there is no reason to regulate ico, ico are altcoin if you see them in this way what's the difference between someone investing in altcoin on exchange and ico? none for me

I echo this sentiment. We don't need to be farmed and watched over like a bunch of sheep. We are civilised and able enough to be able to self govern in this day and age!