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Ask HN: Legal implications of ICO?

2 points by licensekey ↗ HN
Hello, can someone point to resource which would describe the legality of ICOs?

A lot of coverage mentions "scam" and almost all ICOs say "can't be bought by US and EU citizens"

Is there a blog post / paper on that?

4 comments

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cjbprime
It's somewhat uncharted territory, and I am not a lawyer.

But the non-lawyer consensus seems to be that if you're seeking or accepting investment through your ICO, rather than selling something that is useful to your customers and already exists, you are in effect selling an unlicensed security to unaccredited investors, and in the US this is extremely illegal and regulated by the SEC.

You could Google [ICO unlicensed security] to read more about this take.

licensekey
thank you, just did Google.

Are there any examples of ICO companies getting in trouble because of SEC?