[marcinzm]

>I don’t need that to buy any other stock, why would I need it here?

Those have much stricter legal and regulatory oversights which would be financially infeasible for a smaller entity to deal with. The law is to prevent people from losing all their limited life savings in scams.

>Hell, how does it even apply to people not living in the US in the first place.

Because it's a US company governed by US laws around hosting an investment vehicle. Feel free to invest in a company in a different country if you wish to be governed by different laws.

[Aeolun]

> Because it's a US company governed by US laws around hosting an investment vehicle.

Yeah, I understand that. It was mostly a thought experiment. Say I invest in this company, sitting in my house in Japan. What are they going to do? Extradite me to the US because I gave some US company money in an unapproved way?

[marcinzm]

I'm not a lawyer and this is random guesses. If the SEC goes after the company due to this then you may be liable for civil penalties as you lied on a contract. This could mean that any of your other US investments could be taken if you lose the case. It may also make the initial contract around the investment void in which case you may lose out on any increase in valuation. I suspect the SEC would be much in favor of the last one happening to discourage such actions in the future.