SEC Charges Bitcoin Savings and Trust (BTCST) as Ponzi Scheme

[matuszed]

https://www.sec.gov/servlet/Satellite/News/PressRelease/Detail/PressRelease/1370539730583#.Ue6zJo1WZ8F

[burnside]

https://www.sec.gov/servlet/Satellite/News/PressRelease/Detail/PressRelease/1370539730583#.Ue6zJo1WZ8F

About time!

[iCEBREAKER]

Excuse me Mr. Pirate, the Bitcoin Police would like a word with you!

And don't forget to bring in your accomplice, Payb.tc.

[twentyseventy]

I figured this was going to show BTC in a somewhat negative light, but it seems that it's a good step towards mainstream adoption that the SEC regards virtual currencies as similar to fiat currency in a situation like this (though he did cash a good deal of it out to USD)

[vlaoou321]

Trendon？

[Peter Lambert]

https://www.sec.gov/servlet/Satellite/News/PressRelease/Detail/PressRelease/1370539730583#.Ue6zJo1WZ8F

About time!

What do you think about the chances they will charge everything on BTCT as illigal investment offerings?

[MSantori]

What do you think about the chances they will charge everything on BTCT as illigal investment offerings?

I think they are pretty good, actually.  From the attendant Investor Alert:

"the fraud may also involve an unregistered offering or trading platform"

and, here's the real kicker:

"Any investment in securities in the United states remains subject to the jurisdiction of the SEC regardless of whether the investment is made in U.S. dollars or a virtual currency. In particular, individuals selling investments are typically subject to federal or state licensing requirements."

I have, of course, counseled my clients on this point for some time.

Attention Unregistered Exchanges, Perpetual Mining Bonds (PMBs), REITs, and other members of the Bitcoin investment space: The SEC has explicitly indicated its intention to apply the already-existing laws to your security.  You may be selling securities in violation of the Securities Laws.

[btceic]

What do you think about the chances they will charge everything on BTCT as illigal investment offerings?

I think they are pretty good, actually.  From the attendant Investor Alert:

"the fraud may also involve an unregistered offering or trading platform"

and, here's the real kicker:

"Any investment in securities in the United states remains subject to the jurisdiction of the SEC regardless of whether the investment is made in U.S. dollars or a virtual currency. In particular, individuals selling investments are typically subject to federal or state licensing requirements."

I have, of course, counseled my clients on this point for some time.  Looks like I was right.

Attention Unregistered Exchanges, Perpetual Mining Bonds (PMBs), REITs, and other members of the Bitcoin investment space: The SEC has explicitly indicated its intention to apply the already-existing laws to your security.  You are selling securities in violation of the Securities Laws.  Come into compliance, and do it quickly.

any comment for those of us on the investor side of the equation? i.e. folks that are purchasing stocks, bonds, etc on these exchanges?

[matuszed]

What do you think about the chances they will charge everything on BTCT as illigal investment offerings?

I think they are pretty good, actually.  From the attendant Investor Alert:

"the fraud may also involve an unregistered offering or trading platform"

and, here's the real kicker:

"Any investment in securities in the United states remains subject to the jurisdiction of the SEC regardless of whether the investment is made in U.S. dollars or a virtual currency. In particular, individuals selling investments are typically subject to federal or state licensing requirements."

I have, of course, counseled my clients on this point for some time.  Looks like I was right.

Attention Unregistered Exchanges, Perpetual Mining Bonds (PMBs), REITs, and other members of the Bitcoin investment space: The SEC has explicitly indicated its intention to apply the already-existing laws to your security.  You are selling securities in violation of the Securities Laws.  Come into compliance, and do it quickly.

Yea the only thing I think that might be a saving grace is are any of these listed securities worth the SEC's time.

[mccoyspace]

Dear BTCT, Bitfunder, Mpex, icbit, et. al..... get ready for a visit from the SEC.

[rustyh17]

What do you think about the chances they will charge everything on BTCT as illigal investment offerings?

I think they are pretty good, actually.  From the attendant Investor Alert:

"the fraud may also involve an unregistered offering or trading platform"

and, here's the real kicker:

"Any investment in securities in the United states remains subject to the jurisdiction of the SEC regardless of whether the investment is made in U.S. dollars or a virtual currency. In particular, individuals selling investments are typically subject to federal or state licensing requirements."

I have, of course, counseled my clients on this point for some time.  Looks like I was right.

Attention Unregistered Exchanges, Perpetual Mining Bonds (PMBs), REITs, and other members of the Bitcoin investment space: The SEC has explicitly indicated its intention to apply the already-existing laws to your security.  You are selling securities in violation of the Securities Laws.  Come into compliance, and do it quickly.

Yea the only thing I think that might be a saving grace is are any of these listed securities worth the SEC's time.

Roughly speaking, how would an exchange "come into compliance" quickly?

[iCEBREAKER]

"Any investment in securities in the United states remains subject to the jurisdiction of the SEC regardless of whether the investment is made in U.S. dollars or a virtual currency. In particular, individuals selling investments are typically subject to federal or state licensing requirements."

I have, of course, counseled my clients on this point for some time.  Looks like I was right.

Attention Unregistered Exchanges, Perpetual Mining Bonds (PMBs), REITs, and other members of the Bitcoin investment space: The SEC has explicitly indicated its intention to apply the already-existing laws to your security.  You are selling securities in violation of the Securities Laws.  Come into compliance, and do it quickly.

Not everyone is as eager as you to lick the boots of the authoritarian state. 

Of course as a lawyer you depend on sniveling cowardice in the face of centralized coercion to make money, so no real surprise there.

Many bitcoiners, being agorists, are explicitly dedicated to using the free (so-called 'black') market to undermine and eventually overtake the oligarchs' crony pseudo-capitalist economic structures.

We will not comply.  We will live as free men and see who has a problem with that.  Then come the assassination markets...

[Mabsark]

What do you think about the chances they will charge everything on BTCT as illigal investment offerings?

I think they are pretty good, actually.  From the attendant Investor Alert:

"the fraud may also involve an unregistered offering or trading platform"

and, here's the real kicker:

"Any investment in securities in the United states remains subject to the jurisdiction of the SEC regardless of whether the investment is made in U.S. dollars or a virtual currency. In particular, individuals selling investments are typically subject to federal or state licensing requirements."

I have, of course, counseled my clients on this point for some time.  Looks like I was right.

Attention Unregistered Exchanges, Perpetual Mining Bonds (PMBs), REITs, and other members of the Bitcoin investment space: The SEC has explicitly indicated its intention to apply the already-existing laws to your security.  You are selling securities in violation of the Securities Laws.  Come into compliance, and do it quickly.

This may come as a surprise to you but US law is irrelevant outside the US and these exchanges are not US based.

[Mabsark]

What do you think about the chances they will charge everything on BTCT as illigal investment offerings?

I think they are pretty good, actually.  From the attendant Investor Alert:

"the fraud may also involve an unregistered offering or trading platform"

and, here's the real kicker:

"Any investment in securities in the United states remains subject to the jurisdiction of the SEC regardless of whether the investment is made in U.S. dollars or a virtual currency. In particular, individuals selling investments are typically subject to federal or state licensing requirements."

I have, of course, counseled my clients on this point for some time.  Looks like I was right.

Attention Unregistered Exchanges, Perpetual Mining Bonds (PMBs), REITs, and other members of the Bitcoin investment space: The SEC has explicitly indicated its intention to apply the already-existing laws to your security.  You are selling securities in violation of the Securities Laws.  Come into compliance, and do it quickly.

any comment for those of us on the investor side of the equation? i.e. folks that are purchasing stocks, bonds, etc on these exchanges?

I don't live in the US and I'm not using US based exchanges. What more is there to say?

[twentyseventy]

What do you think about the chances they will charge everything on BTCT as illigal investment offerings?

I think they are pretty good, actually.  From the attendant Investor Alert:

"the fraud may also involve an unregistered offering or trading platform"

and, here's the real kicker:

"Any investment in securities in the United states remains subject to the jurisdiction of the SEC regardless of whether the investment is made in U.S. dollars or a virtual currency. In particular, individuals selling investments are typically subject to federal or state licensing requirements."

I have, of course, counseled my clients on this point for some time.  Looks like I was right.

Attention Unregistered Exchanges, Perpetual Mining Bonds (PMBs), REITs, and other members of the Bitcoin investment space: The SEC has explicitly indicated its intention to apply the already-existing laws to your security.  You are selling securities in violation of the Securities Laws.  Come into compliance, and do it quickly.

Yea the only thing I think that might be a saving grace is are any of these listed securities worth the SEC's time.

Roughly speaking, how would an exchange "come into compliance" quickly?

I don't think "SEC" and "quick compliance" really go hand in hand.

[iCEBREAKER]

Roughly speaking, how would an exchange "come into compliance" quickly?

There is no clear path to compliance.  That would be too easy and not allow for maximum extraction of rent via duress under color of law.

"Come into compliance" is code for 'play ball or else.'

This is nothing less than an extortionist demand for the low friction Bitcoin economy to move backwards, and mimic the gross inefficiencies in the hyper-regulated dying world of fiat trash.

The putative regulatory agency in question, the SEC, has been deeply captured by the very entities it was supposed to be keeping under control.

Bitcoin and its efficient markets represent an existential threat to those rent-collecting entities.

"Give us silk-suited thugs of the lawyer mafia all your profits, or else we'll use our guns and tanks to hurt you" is the bottom line here.

The question is whether we accept these initiations of force like slaves, or retaliate in self-defense in the manner of Bitcoin-empowered sovereign individuals.

[matuszed]

Shouldn't the recent lift of the ban of general solicitation cover exchanges such as these to a degree?

[MSantori]

I've softened my post a bit with some stealth-editing.  The message remains the same, though: Unregistered exchanges servicing US customers are not flying under anybody's radar.  US entities issuing "securities" aren't either.  None of this is "virtual" from the SEC's perspective. An investment is an investment.  Denomination in BTC does not exempt it from such.

[greyhawk]

This may come as a surprise to you but US law is irrelevant outside the US and these exchanges are not US based.

Look at Liberty Reserve for how well that argument worked out for them.

[Mabsark]

I've softened my post a bit with some stealth-editing.  The message remains the same, though: Unregistered exchanges servicing US customers are not flying under anybody's radar.  US entities issuing "securities" aren't either.  None of this is "virtual" from the SEC's perspective. An investment is an investment.  Denomination in BTC does not exempt it from such.

Who exactly are these "Unregistered exchanges" and "US entities" you are talking about?