<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>hal9000xp</author><text>I think the notion of accredited investor is very discriminatory to small investors. It&amp;#x27;s basically says - if you already wealthy then you have an access to attractive investment opportunities with huge upside (and of course, huge risk), if you are just a middle class man then stay where you are (since your investment options with huge upside are severely limited and you don&amp;#x27;t have enough capital to make sense from investing in index).&lt;p&gt;The better version of requirements for accredited investors would be some sort of exam (hard enough to make sure you have solid knowledge about financial markets, financial instruments and risk&amp;#x2F;return relationship).</text><parent_chain><item><author>Cshelton</author><text>All these ICO&amp;#x27;s have been avoiding any SEC regulation regarding private security sales by claiming the tokens are just a method to use&amp;#x2F;exchange services on their platform, not as an investment.&lt;p&gt;However, when ICO&amp;#x27;s like this one keep happening where only 100 &amp;quot;accounts&amp;quot; own 99% of the ICO offering, you pretty much lose that argument of the tokens only being there for use of the platform. It&amp;#x27;s a private security sale, and I only see one way this will end. The SEC will make a case out of one of the ICO&amp;#x27;s 100%. They do not take advertising to unaccredited investors lightly.&lt;p&gt;My only suggestion, if you are involved in any way with an ICO (developer, investor on the team pre-ICO, etc.), either get out of the U.S. now and&amp;#x2F;or make sure all operations are happening outside the U.S. I was almost involved with a company doing essentially what these ICO&amp;#x27;s are doing (not blockchain&amp;#x2F;crypto currencies), and fortunately I figured it out before being involved, but it did not end pretty for them. Like the IRS, the SEC&amp;#x2F;others will come down hard, not a matter of if at this point, it&amp;#x27;s when and who gets the beating first. They love making cases out of someone to set precedent.&lt;p&gt;With the general public playing into an overbought token market fueled by Asian countries for the most part, the regulators&amp;#x2F;SEC will come down extremely hard on this.&lt;p&gt;I think investing in Ethereum&amp;#x2F;Bitcoin is fine, just know what you&amp;#x27;re doing, record your cost basis for when you bought it. And seeing first hand what the IRS does to people who avoid paying taxes, just make your life easy, when you exchange back to a currency that is considered a currency by the IRS, just pay your capital gains on it and move on with life. The IRS will catch up and many people will go to jail for tax evasion. Don&amp;#x27;t be one of them. Obviously, all this only pertains to the U.S..&lt;p&gt;Also for fun, if you really want to see the hysteria around the Ethereum price right now, check out r&amp;#x2F;ethtrader&amp;#x2F; or even the Ethereum FB group. People are throwing their entire savings into this while not knowing anything about it besides everyone in the group hyping it up amongst themselves. It&amp;#x27;s really sad. Ethereum is now actively pumped heavily on MLM sites&amp;#x2F;blogs. It&amp;#x27;s beyond gross. I believe Ethereum is an amazing project and am worried that this hype fueled hysteria, once it collapses on itself, will give Ethereum a bad reputation. It is a great protocol.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Brave raises $35M in 1 min with ICO</title><url>https://twitter.com/BrettShear/status/869932977492459520</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>seibelj</author><text>But if you own a token, you own nothing in the company, no equity, no promises, no contract signed, you don&amp;#x27;t have any right to any profits and Brave can say tomorrow that all the tokens are worthless. It&amp;#x27;s not so straight-forward that they raised investment, really they sold $35mil of a product. But IANAL, and you could easily be right, I&amp;#x27;m just saying it isn&amp;#x27;t so cut and dry.</text><parent_chain><item><author>Cshelton</author><text>All these ICO&amp;#x27;s have been avoiding any SEC regulation regarding private security sales by claiming the tokens are just a method to use&amp;#x2F;exchange services on their platform, not as an investment.&lt;p&gt;However, when ICO&amp;#x27;s like this one keep happening where only 100 &amp;quot;accounts&amp;quot; own 99% of the ICO offering, you pretty much lose that argument of the tokens only being there for use of the platform. It&amp;#x27;s a private security sale, and I only see one way this will end. The SEC will make a case out of one of the ICO&amp;#x27;s 100%. They do not take advertising to unaccredited investors lightly.&lt;p&gt;My only suggestion, if you are involved in any way with an ICO (developer, investor on the team pre-ICO, etc.), either get out of the U.S. now and&amp;#x2F;or make sure all operations are happening outside the U.S. I was almost involved with a company doing essentially what these ICO&amp;#x27;s are doing (not blockchain&amp;#x2F;crypto currencies), and fortunately I figured it out before being involved, but it did not end pretty for them. Like the IRS, the SEC&amp;#x2F;others will come down hard, not a matter of if at this point, it&amp;#x27;s when and who gets the beating first. They love making cases out of someone to set precedent.&lt;p&gt;With the general public playing into an overbought token market fueled by Asian countries for the most part, the regulators&amp;#x2F;SEC will come down extremely hard on this.&lt;p&gt;I think investing in Ethereum&amp;#x2F;Bitcoin is fine, just know what you&amp;#x27;re doing, record your cost basis for when you bought it. And seeing first hand what the IRS does to people who avoid paying taxes, just make your life easy, when you exchange back to a currency that is considered a currency by the IRS, just pay your capital gains on it and move on with life. The IRS will catch up and many people will go to jail for tax evasion. Don&amp;#x27;t be one of them. Obviously, all this only pertains to the U.S..&lt;p&gt;Also for fun, if you really want to see the hysteria around the Ethereum price right now, check out r&amp;#x2F;ethtrader&amp;#x2F; or even the Ethereum FB group. People are throwing their entire savings into this while not knowing anything about it besides everyone in the group hyping it up amongst themselves. It&amp;#x27;s really sad. Ethereum is now actively pumped heavily on MLM sites&amp;#x2F;blogs. It&amp;#x27;s beyond gross. I believe Ethereum is an amazing project and am worried that this hype fueled hysteria, once it collapses on itself, will give Ethereum a bad reputation. It is a great protocol.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Brave raises $35M in 1 min with ICO</title><url>https://twitter.com/BrettShear/status/869932977492459520</url></story>