The SEC has become “an agency that polices the broken windows on the street level, and rarely goes to the penthouse floors.”
-James Kidney, SEC senior trial attorney, speaking at his retirement party in 2014.
In 2014 Eric Vorhees, (satoshidice, shapeshift), was fined over $50,000 by the United States Securities and Exchange Commisom. A business deal, which turned out great for Eric and investors alike, was deemed illegal by the SEC, and Erik was subsequently charged with “offering unregistered securities”. What a joke.
In more recent news, the SEC has contacted some blockchain businesses that are holding token sales, and forced them to close and refund investors. The SEC, in the name of protecting consumers, is stifling innovation and trampling on the rights of business owners and common investors. The SEC, in the very near future, will fully regulate (or criminalize) the way businesses can raise money with token sales. From an investor stand-point, these regulations will likely mirror the current guidelines for accredited investors in the US. Investors will likely need to have a net worth in excess of 1 million dollars, or a high income for several years in a row. This is bullshit. We don’t need to be told how, when, or what we can invest our money in.
The SEC official duty is to “maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation”. Their unofficial duty however, is to play nice to big corporations, so they can take a very high paying private sector job in the future. The sentiment towards the markets, and the capital formation for investment, in reality has nothing to do with the SEC. They can’t point to a single thing they have ever done that has facilitated capital formation, and in fact the number of IPOs are trending down.
The SEC shells out billions and billions of in fines each year, and while some people charged are actually engaged in nefarious acts, such as Ponzi schemes, some cases are a little more suspect.
Gary Griffiths was the vice president and chief mechanical officer at Florida East Coast Railway. Gary and his nephew Cliff, noticed a surprising number of men in suits and limos visiting the trail yard for tours. They thought it was possible the company was for sale, and led relatives to buy stock in the company, thinking they could profit from the potential sale. The SEC thought their stock trading was illegal, and charged them with insider trading. These people used their instincts and intellect to make a good speculative investment, and in the end, a jury sided against the SEC.
In addition to “insider trading” cases, a large number of SEC fines go to big banks. As we all know by now, big banks are some of the most evil companies on earth. In 2012 HSBC agreed to pay almost 2 billion dollars in fines to the SEC in a case involving HSBC laundering money for Mexican cartels.
Soon after, customers received letters in the mail noting certain “changes” that were being made to HSBC accounts, such as delays in depositing money into accounts. What these “changes” did was allow HSBC to increase their float, and thus interest payments, to offset the fines they had received. Big banks know that they can do anything they want, and if and when they get caught, can just pay the fines and then bill the costs to their customers. The fines on big banks and corporations are never great enough to inflict any real damage, it’s just a dog and pony show.
The SEC is a useless government body that does nothing to actually protect investors, and they should stay out of crypto currencies. Blockchain companies in the US are already terrified to allow US investors to participate, and some projects simply can’t afford the legal cost it would take to even start a project. While the governments of the world think they can regulate this industry, the truth is they can only regulate it as much as we allow them to. With the technology available now, we simply do not have to comply with the rules they set in place. We don’t have to support their centralized bullshit blockchains. As a community we must demand decentralization and privacy. Do not let governments and corporations hijack this technology.
The team at ICOMG believe a world is soon coming that can no longer be regulated by governments or other regulatory bodies. ICOMG.io will allow anyone, in any country, to anonymously participate in any ICO they want. Our token sale begins this Friday, September 29th. Icomg tokens are a dividend coin that represent 100% of the gross profit of icomg.io
People have been asking us if our token is considered a security by the SEC, and is this subject to regulation. Our answer is….Duh, but who cares. Check out our open letter to the SEC at www.icomg.io