Crowdfunding will be legal in U.S. after Thursday, 5 Apr 2012...

[maaku]

...when Obama signs the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act. Anyone will be allowed to buy stock in early-stage startups, up to a certain limit. It will also ease a bunch of other restrictions, including letting companies advertise online that they are seeking investment.

Needless to say, this will help a lot of early-stage Bitcoin startups.

[Nefario]

Was crowdfunding illegal before?

I thought it was just an unregulated area.

[realnowhereman]

Was crowdfunding illegal before?

I thought it was just an unregulated area.

You're right, it's really worrying that asking for funding from freely-participating members would be illegal.

[amazingrando]

If I'm not mistaken the limit is like up to $1 million.  Anything larger than that you need to follow SEC rules like getting investments from accredited investors and the like.  The idea is that regulation can limit the number of scam investments.  Though with the likes of Madoff, Stanford, and others it seems like you can still get away with it at a phenomenal magnitude.

[MemoryDealers]

Should we all thank our masters for allowing us to do what we want with our own money?

It is this kind of insanity that makes me love Bitcoin so much.

People should not need permission from others to use their own money however they want.

[Sukrim]

It's rather about being allowed to buy shares in a startup company that might not immediately meet all the requirements to hand out stock as opposed to only donating for something you like.

If I give 10 USD to charity (not the stripper...), I don't really expect something back - it's enough for me to see that the world is a better place in part of because I contributed that money.
If I buy 1/10 000 of a company with 100 USD because it needed 1 million USD and decided to hand out shares for that, I'm expecting that this company is run properly, according to regulations, that I can sue someone should they just want to take the money and run and so on.

If you look at a lot of GLBSE "companies", GLBSE is already kinda used like this, but it's sometimes very hard for me at least to trust the "company" owners. Scams also already happened there or at least things that would qualify to be VERY close to being classified as scam (or at least a very bad investment). Having a more formal and also legal way of doing such things is something great - and I would LOVE to see an accredited crowdfunding platform in the US that accepts bitcoins too for investing in startups.

[realnowhereman]

If I buy 1/10 000 of a company with 100 USD because it needed 1 million USD and decided to hand out shares for that, I'm expecting that this company is run properly, according to regulations, that I can sue someone should they just want to take the money and run and so on.

I understand entirely where you're coming from; and it is the risk of scammers that has resulted in the regulations on the finance industry that we have.

However... wouldn't it be better if people were forced to do their own due diligence before investing?  Wouldn't we get a more efficient market if people were responsible (truly responsible) for their own investments; the money would go to where it would be most productively used.

Obviously there are risks of tricksters and it's worthwhile to try and stop that; outright fraud is illegal whatever the regulations are.  But "invest me me, I have a pretty office" investments might actually be reduced if your shareholders have some skin in the game.

(I accept that I am probably being overly optimistic)

[Phinnaeus Gage]

...when Obama signs the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act. Anyone will be allowed to buy stock in early-stage startups, up to a certain limit. It will also ease a bunch of other restrictions, including letting companies advertise online that they are seeking investment.

Needless to say, this will help a lot of early-stage Bitcoin startups.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a thread a few months back about making Bitcoin a stock based entity? If so, or not, even, perhaps making a certain segment of Bitcoin a stock based entity. Not sure which or how, but food for thought nonetheless.

~Bruno~

[bitcoinstarter]

These are definitely interesting times ahead!