Senator Warren Asks SEC Chairman about Virtual Currency and Initial Coin Offerings

Thank You mr. chairman so I want to go back to virtual currency and I want to ask about initial coin offerings icos some ICS raise money for legitimate companies but others we know are just ponzi schemes and many of the investors in ICS are just everyday Americans lured by aggressive marketing promising very high returns in fact it is now so bad that Facebook recently banned all ads for virtual currency related products and icos because there were so many quote deceptive and misleading advertising that targeted regular consumers so I just want to ask a little bit of question around how we make AI SEOs safer chairman Clayton the sec evidently recognized the risk so it announced last summer that it would consider certain coins to be securities under the securities act meaning that they have to be registered with the commission and comply with disclosure requirements in 2017 companies raised more than four billion dollars in I SEOs how many of those companies registered their IC o—- with the SEC not one not one and as of today how many companies have registered for upcoming ICS not one not one so we're still at zero can you just say a word about why that's so yeah I think I don't think the gatekeepers that we rely on to assist us in making sure our securities laws have are followed have done their job we've made it clear what the law is as I as I've said many times there are thousands and thousands of private placements that go on every year in the US we want them to go on we want people to raise capital but we want them to do it right right what I SEOs do is they take the disclosure light benefit of a private placement and then add to it the public general solicitation and retail investor promise of a secondary market without registering with us and folks somehow got comfortable that this was new and it was okay and it was not a security it was just some other way to raise money well I disagree with them so it is not new it is no it is new but it is not okay and it is not another way to raise money correct I am understanding you to say it is violation of law yes you know registration really matters when companies don't register their tokens as securities they can hide information and the SEC does not have the information it needs I monitor this market I am perfectly happy for these people to do private placements but do them right don't don't try and do it as a private placement but get all the benefits of a public never over into a public other shenanigans there well good so should I take today as you're sounding a warning bell for people maybe they better pay a little closer attention to the law or the SEC is going to pay closer attention to them yes and it's not the first time but I really appreciate the opportunity to do it today thank you Thank You mr. chairman

5 thoughts on “Senator Warren Asks SEC Chairman about Virtual Currency and Initial Coin Offerings”

  1. I enjoy that he blamed another office for any failings in their swamp, commander bonespurs troops sound like evengelicals

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