[cperciva]

ICOs are forcing the SECs hand and I think it show cases the interest that exist in the public to get into these early stage startups.

Ponzi schemes are forcing the SEC's hand, and I think it showcases the interest that exists in the public to get into these early stage pyramid schemes.

The fact that the public is interested in something doesn't make the SEC say "oh, ok, that's fine then". The SEC's job isn't to get out of the way of the public. The SEC's job is to get in the public's way, in order to protect the public from scams -- which means the more public interest there is in something, the closer the SEC will be looking at it.

[fowlerpower]

I agree with you that the SEC is there to protect the public.

You are incorrectly saying that ICOs are a Ponzi scheme. When they are in fact too new to be labeled as anything. If they were in fact all Ponzi Schemes then people would already be in jail.

Secondly the SEC is there to balance both sides of the equation. Companies interests and the public dumping money into scams.

[will_brown]

> If they were in fact all Ponzi Schemes then people would already be in jail.

Well it was the SEC that oddly of all the ICOs published an opinion on the DAO, the one ICO that was hard forked (erased from existence). Though if the DAO wasn't erased, based on the SEC opinion it is fair to say they would have brought a case right? I mean its not exactly fair for them to conclude the DAO was an illegal sale of securities and then not enforce the law.

Separately, we have instances of the SEC contacting ICOs and informing them they are in violation of the law and the ICO investments being returned to investors...so I think the SEC has fully weighed both sides of the equation.

Certainly the comment you are responding to did not say ICOs are ponzi schemes, they just simply applied your ICO logic to another situation, but truthfully many ICOs will turn out to be ponzi schemes and outright fraud, and likely the DAO was neither (surely it would be fraud if they were the hacker) but they still were likely violating securities laws.

[jacquesm]

The SEC isn't there to protect the public. It is there to make sure the public will continue to trust the markets. Keep in mind that the whole game is powered by trust, if that trust gets damaged too much everything will collapse.

[cperciva]

I didn't mean to imply that ICOs were Ponzi schemes. I was just trying to draw an analogy to explain why "the public wants this" isn't an argument which is liable to convince the SEC to back off.