China Bans Companies From Raising Money Through ICOs (cnbc.com) 67
Regulators are about to begin scrutinizing China's initial coin offerings -- an industry worth hundreds of millions of dollars. From a report: Local outlet Caixin reported that a notice, issued by a working committee that oversees risk in the country's internet finance sector, said new projects raising cash or other virtual currencies through cryptocurrencies will be banned. It added that authorities will crack down on related fraudulent practices. The document defined initial coin offerings (ICOs) as an unauthorized fundraising tool that may involve financial scams, the Caixin report noted. The committee provided a list of 60 major ICO platforms for local financial regulatory bodies to inspect. Seven government administrations including the People's Bank of China, China Securities Regulatory Commission, China Banking Regulatory Commission and China Insurance Regulatory Commission issued a joint statement where they reiterated that ICOs are unauthorized illegal fund raising activity. The statement said authorities are banning all organizations and individuals from raising funds through ICO activities and that all banks and financial institutions should not do any business related to ICO trading.
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All this means is people can't hide their money from the government. The government is making all CC illegal for the most part. They will allow CC in the future but only ones that they approve. So as of right now having a CC is extremely risky for people in China so people are dumping them as quickly as possible so they can have actual cash instead of a piece of digital code that will not be usable to them and might get them arrested.
Re:Proof reading (Score:5, Insightful)
You just made that up out of whole cloth. The Chinese people don't trust their fiat. They are trying anyway to convert their cash into anything that they can use to take currency out of the country.
You are 100% correct. As the spouse of a Chinese national, and a person who has spent a LOT of time (full time) living in China, you are 100% correct. Wealthy Chinese want their money out of China, it's heavily manipulated and controlled, and China is finally cracking down on tax evasion (which is rampant in China).
And you are also completely wrong. Wealthy Chinese want their money out of China - but they also really do NOT want to end up in a Chinese prison or executed (yes, high amounts of tax fraud can receive a death penalty). So they tend to use legal vehicles only, including investments in actual registered overseas companies, legal gifts to family (why do you think the massive rise in "finding my overseas cousins" happened?), and setting up HK corporations that will invest funds overseas. Bitcoin and CC in general are now verboten as financial instruments in China, and no one will trust them anymore - because playing with them in any reasonable amount (10MM RMB or higher) can result in jailtime or worse...
Sucks if you're a CC speculator who's been relying upon the run-up in China/Asia to continue your gains - but that stool has just been kicked out from under you.
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BTCChina and Huobi are legitimate/legal (as far as I understand) CC exchanges in China.
Are you saying that it will be against the law for people to purchase BTC with yuan in China in the near future?
I understand that the Chinese KYC laws are being strengthened; that takes away the specter of tax evasion. But it allows people to protect some of their assets outside of China; have some assets not tied to they yuan or local real estate. Of course the government can always ask them politel
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but with that gone - what's the attraction over gold, US dollars, or shares in a REIT?
What would be the attraction of CC over gold, etc?
1. You needn't find a company to trust and you won't need to sign any papers.
When buying REITs or Gold you need to do due diligence on the company. One to One cryptocurrencies are easier than REITs or Gold. Meaning, that if you feel BTC is a solid investment in and of itself, it's an easier purchase, an easier asset to own than REITs or Gold. Also, when purchasing gold, one is not buying "gold" one is buying a piece of paper promising that the paper
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So - rather than buy gold, or other assets, you recommend CC which is now banned from trading in significant amounts. Better to get something that is 100% traceable (yes, CC by design records ALL your transactions with it, as compared to gold or diamonds or other commodities) so that you can run the risk of prison or death. Hurray!
Currently, getting money OUT of China is quite problematic, and is limited to essentially investing in overseas companies, OR in funding a Hong Kong LLC (which can then fund ove
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Can you easily leave China with said jade without anyone knowing?
The wealthier you are the more options you have. If you could buy expensive pieces of jade with cash and wear them and sell them OK. Two thumbs up. That works.
If so - that is far superior to CC.
But what if you're not that wealthy? What if the most you can squirrel away is $5,000 or $10,000 or $25,000 a year? Would REITs make sense?
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Can you easily acquire tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in jade and gold and diamonds with cash?
Yes. Visit any high-end jewelry shop in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Beijing, Nanjing, or any larger city. I have a good friend who sells such jade, and she regularly sells 2-3 bracelets a month that are worth more than 1 million RMB. Typically cash sales, too...
Go to your neighborhood ICBC or BOC and watch. You'll see dozens of people an hour walking in and out with literally bags full of RMB. China is still very much a cash society - it is nearly impossible to get by in China without cash. Credi
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How is a CC a supply for emergency ethics? How portable is that CC? If you were a Jew in 1930s Germany, and had successfully masked your name, how would you like to have a single donation to the local synagogue with your CC suddenly get tracked back to you?
IF you want to have an emergency store of value, silver is probably your best bet. Incredibly liquid - you can exchange it for cash, on the spot, anywhere around the world without any records. You can buy it for cash the same way. It is low enough value per ounce that it won't break you to accumulate it or spend it, and it is still valuable enough that 10 pounds of the stuff is a couple of thousands of dollars in value.
First, as you plan your emergency "Get Out Of Dodge" wallet you won't transfer from any wallets you've used before. You'll acquire BTC (or some other cryptocurrency) and you will add to this secret wallet as you see fit. The wallet cannot be traced to you. Obviously you can't spend any of the money without giving some clue to the secret police, so once the money goes in, it isn't spent frivolously.
I would much rather be a refugee with cash for bribes AND have the bulk of my savings in a brain wallet. Ob
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All you say is true. The blockchain is a ledger of accounts and can easily be traced by a government agency. Nonetheless, you've left the country with your assets. Now, it's true, you have a different set of problems: namely staying hidden from people trying to track you down.
If you're a solitary criminal (or part of a criminal organization) foreign agencies will collaborate to arrest you. If you're a refugee fleeing a country, one of millions of refuge
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Yes. But you're out of the country at that point.
Because countries NEVER cooperate with each other, or call for extradition, especially with tax matters...
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But now your talking about CC as tax evasion as opposed to fleeing. (And yes countries can and do conflate the to.)
Still cash, as you put it is preferable.
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Can the government claim tax evasion? Yes. Of course.
Using Bitcoin for tax evasion is foolish. All transactions are on a public ledger and can be used to trace and convict y
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If I link ONE transaction to your wallet - I then have EVERY transaction in your wallet.
This is overstating matters. Modern ("hierarchical deterministic") Bitcoin wallets make it easy to use separate addresses for each incoming transfer, and this is generally the default setting. The addresses are all derived from a single seed, but unless you know that seed they appear to be independent. Incoming payments are not associated with the other addresses based on the same seed (your "wallet") until the coins are spent, and even then only to the extent that multiple inputs are combined together to f
An ICO is a like an IPO (stocks) (Score:2, Insightful)
When a company goes public, it sells shares in the company to raise money; investors by equity, hoping that they'll get to reap the rewards of owning part of a successful company. These shares are sold as part of what's called an IPO (initial public offering).
An ICO (initial coin offering) is a similar concept, but far more general and interesting; rather than buying shares, an investor buys cryptographic tokens (called "coins") that represent some kind of ownership of (or affiliation with) the endeavor.
Bec
An ICO is a like an IPO, but it's a bubble (Score:3, Insightful)
An ICO (initial coin offering) is a similar concept, but far more general and interesting; rather than buying shares, an investor buys cryptographic tokens (called "coins") that represent some kind of ownership of (or affiliation with) the endeavor. Because these tokens are just cryptocurrencies (perhaps built on top of the Bitcoin system itself), they are far more interesting than regular shares.
Nice analysis, but your use of the word "interesting" is interesting.
What is interesting about people investing in ICOs is that they get nothing real for their money. They are investing in something that they hope will be valuable for no other reason than that other people think it's valuable. This is the very definition of a bubble; they could be investing in beanie babies or tulip bulbs or collectable cards.
Re: Your usage of the word "real" is interesting. (Score:1)
" It's a piece of data with which you can control a humongous, global network of computers that I assure you is very real."
What???? The coins don't control the network, the miners do.
Also if you replace a couple words with what the GP said and it comes back the same.
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What is interesting about people investing in ICOs is that they get nothing real for their money. They are investing in something that they hope will be valuable for no other reason than that other people think it's valuable.
How is this any different from the stock market?
They're not even close (Score:3, Insightful)
China can and should control it. People can do dumb things i
You're right. They're not even close. (Score:1)
Your decades—no, centuries—of case law and governmental regulations are primitive, ad-hoc, wooden-gear playthings in comparison to the advanced logistical machinery offered by cryptotoken systems.
Anything your traditional stock shares can represent, cryptotokens can represent better, and without the need to rely on the bureaucrats of some baroque, kabuki rendition of authority, whose only real power is the unstable and poorly defined ability to tell men-with-guns to make trouble for this person
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The cyptotoken systems remove the levers from the hands of these fools.
Which is precisely why they will go to any lengths to prevent the widespread adoption of any crypto-token/currency they do not control, including murdering/imprisoning as many people as it takes while blatantly trampling over Rule of Law and civil rights along the way. They will never willingly give up that power over currencies and the money supply regardless of any laws, acts, votes, amendments, etc that are held/passed/enacted. If it happens, it will be after many have died.
You're right about the bad policies (Score:3)
Cryptotokens aren't anything special. Their prices are high right now because of money laundering, drugs and ransomeware. If you doubt me ask your
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Cryptotokens aren't anything special. Their prices are high right now because of money laundering, drugs and ransomeware. If you doubt me ask yourself what you can buy with them.
Ask myself? How about I ask overstock.com [overstock.com] instead? They may not sell mortgages, but they do sell all sorts of housewares and other random crap that you'd find in a department store.
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An ICO (initial coin offering) is a similar concept, but far more general and interesting; rather than buying shares, an investor buys cryptographic tokens (called "coins") that represent some kind of ownership of (or affiliation with) the endeavor.
While this is true in theory, in practice most ICOs are scams: someone creates a new cryptocurrency out of thin air by cloning an existing open source project and offers these coins for sale. Greedy non-savvy investors buy these hoping they will get rich when the price increases (that never happens), while the founders fill their pockets with the money.
Examples of such scams are Superior Coin [superiorcoin.info] (a ripoff of Monero [getmonero.org]), SureCoin [thesurecoin.com] (another copy of Monero started by the scammer who started Superior Coin), and Parago [reddit.com]
China? (Score:2)
China is evil
Bitcoin crash (Score:1)
On 02 Sep, Bitcoin was at $4,964, as of right now it is at $4,223. I wonder how much lower it will go?
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The market cap for all cryptocurrencies went from $180,000,000,000 on 02 Sep to $143,404,913,005, that is $40,000,000,000 gone in just 2 days.
Re:Bitcoin crash (Score:5, Insightful)
That's 40b that never existed in the first place. When you inflate a balloon, it looks like there is a lot, but essentially, all you have is a thin layer of rubber that you started with.
And when it busts you don't even have anything in your hand to show for your effort. In other words, jacking off is more productive.
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Please don't tell my waifupillow!
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Wasn't that what was allegedly turning me into Romero's bitch?
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And when it busts you don't even have anything in your hand to show for your effort.
This is the same as everything, so what's your point?
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China subsidizes cryptocurrencies with free electricity and other means. They are fighting themselves.
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Oh, you're funny.
China or not cryptocurrencies are here to stay.
Just like the intertubes and that new fangled electronic mail. WTF is that? If it don't take a stamp. It ain't mail.
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Point to a deer and call it a horse.
It's all fun & games until somebody gets their eye put out with an antler.
It's like that 'The Gods Of The Copybook Headings' Kipling poem; Society can only ignore and/or deny reality and human nature just so much for so long until it's faced with stark and unavoidable negative consequences usually costing obscene numbers of innocent lives and unspeakable human suffering.
And yet, here we are as a society playing out; "the bandaged fool's finger goes wobbling back to the fire" once again. It's rather dish
Oh, my empty head... (Score:1)
ICOs are little more than a puramid scheme anyway (Score:4, Informative)
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China has a good reason to ban this (Score:2, Interesting)