[garmaine]

> 2018 will be the start of the enforcement

For what it's worth, I've been hearing "X will be the year of regulatory enforcement" since 2014. So far all we've seen is a very level-headed and even-handed approach targeting just the outright scams. "year of regulatory enforcement" in the crypto currency space is becoming a bit like the "year of linux on the desktop" meme.

[dnomad]

Yes, the SEC will continue to take a very light touch. There's no upside to them cracking down on ICOs. The only people losing money are the people who mostly understand the risks of cryptocurrencies and "invest" anyways. The SEC may get serious when grandmothers lose money or there's blood in the streets. Until then there's a kind of regulatory sovereignty that must be defended on a pro forma basis eg the slam-dunk enforcement actions and various announcements that "some ICOs are securities but we won't say which, never the less it's our decision to make and nobody else's." The only real risk to the SEC is that some other regulator like the NFA or the CFTC will step in and say "these coins are currencies and we're gonna regulate them" or "these coins are commodities and we're gonna regulate them."

[JumpCrisscross]

> There's no upside to them cracking down on ICOs

To add: enforcement resources are limited. Every cryptocurrency fraud investigated is a bread and butter fraud ignored. While caveat emptor isn't the law of the land, justice is a slow-turning mechanism. What will be enforced in the long term need not be addressed in the short.

[zitterbewegung]

Except IRS has guidance on ICOs and it has become a real big problem that bullshit ICOs are out there. If large investment banks are interested in the space then regulation will eventually come forth.

Remember that Coinbase was asked to reveal people who made trades over $10,000.

I was at a conference with someone who gave a speech saying that ~80% of all ICOs are fraudulent. I think that is a bit low in my opinion.

[garmaine]

I think the actual facts you gave regarding enforcement support my point, don't they? All we've seen so far is very targeted, specific actions against the most egregious offenders, whether it is outright scams and ponzi schemes or a financial institution handling billions of dollars worth of transactions while trying to avoid reporting anything.

Basically if you're running a ponzi scheme, an investor con, an unlicensed custodial bank, a non-conforming public securities offering, or a money-laundering operation, expect some agency of the Feds to come calling. But, uh.. duh? That has nothing to do with whether you are handling crypto currency or not.

So far we haven't seen action against legitimately innovative, non-scammy operations in this space. Just the offenders that are quite clearly and quite brazenly flipping their middle finger to the regulations.

[zitterbewegung]

Up to this point yes . Sorry I think I read your post too fast . Right now at this time you are right . I think I may be changing my concept of what will eventually happen. I thought it was a sure thing but now it’s something completely different .

[garmaine]

Yeah, I was myself quite shocked at the (lack of) enforcement against some of the wild west ICOs in the ethereum space, and the ethereum founders & foundation especially. Even rather annoyed -- I've for years been saying they'll go to jail, and turning down very lucrative opportunities by people in that space that would have made me very wealthy today, because I thought they were certain to see massive fines and possible jail time. But they actually got a grandfathered exception and not even a slap on the wrist. Doesn't exactly motivate me to conservatively follow the rules in the future :(