@onceuponatime you are right about Brownies. Maybe it was a bad example...
What about obits, or Metafees? Are they considered securities or just "tokens of appreciation"? Aren't these serve the same thing as the UIA about stealth transfers? Raise funds and distribute earnings from fees?
Anyway, I may got all these wrong..I am sure you guys you will figure this out how to do it but please let's do this as soon as possible because without stealth transfers we will never see liquidity on the DEX..
I'm trying to find out how Ronny is issuing OBITS and selling them for participation in future income streams without being fingered as issuing a security. Same with the ShareBits. If anyone can tell me how they expect to not come under the scrutiny of various regulatory authorities, please let me know.
edit to add: the following analysis is in regards to the usa. it is unclear how these will be regulated by other entities, i.e. the eu.
these uia's are not considered securities. the cftc has ruled that virtual currencies are commodities. in addition, the cftc only has regulatory authority when commodities are being sold for 'future delivery' -- not when a commodity is bought directly at market price and immediate delivery takes place. at least, this is how i understand the various rulings and white papers that the cftc has released regarding regulatory matters of virtual currencies.
one can then consider these uia's as 'interest-bearing commodities.' in a sense, no different than any other PoS coin that is interest-bearing. in other words, unregulated as long as no future contracts are sold.
A UIA *CAN* be considered a security as you noted, depending on how they are used.
The issue at the end of the day here is the liability being brought on @onceuponatime in holding/controlling this UIA in how it operates. People are going to buy this UIA with the intent of having something delivered in the future called stealth feature. Following that, those that buy into it are expecting a return on their 'investment'.
It doesn't matter how you word it.. if/when regulatory body looks at this situation where money was taken, and future profits were promised/expected, it won't matter if you say otherwise. The whole setup clearly indicates that this is an investment with a clear path of return.
METAFEES has not been treated as a security, but more like a temporary loan.
OBITS is being treated as an ongoing security and what happens to it in the future will depend on what regulator compliance and/or consideration has been given to it by it's creator.
I made this suggestion in another thread when FBAs was being proposed by Stan.. I think if a new type of FBA function within BitShares comes into existence.. it should be something that once created gets pushed to the committee members as the managers of the asset, and thus decentralizing the assets and limiting the liabilities tremendously.
I hate to say it.. but I would wait for something like that to be implemented, which shouldn't be overly difficult since it involves mostly just re-purposing various elements we already have.
For those that argue that there is no laws now.. you have to really think 5 steps ahead when it comes to these things. Where are things going to end up? In the end, you want to be in the position where you are most likely to be protected. Since we are talking about blockchain functions too, lifetime is a long time to consider. So the best way to approach this IMO is to ensure that this whole thing remains decentralized.
point of clarification : i never said there were no laws, i have just been repeating what statements regulatory bodies have themselves stated on the matter.
if you deem UIAs / virtual currencies to be securities, and this appears to fall within the definition as given by the Securities Act of 1933 -- see Sec. 2(a)(1) in
https://www.sec.gov/about/laws/sa33.pdf -- then one can make the argument that the unincorporated body of bitshares is the issuer of any of the securities -- be they UIAs or bitshares or FBAs or whatever -- and that the "issuer" on the platform is the "user" selling tokens of their stock on the bitshares platform. alternatively, the `person' (as per the definition of `person') selling UIA could also be considered an `issuer' by definition. see Sec. 2(a)(4) for the definition of 'issuer' as given by the Securities Act of 1933 (previous link).
i would also say that, clearly, the bitshares platform is an exchange, as per the definitions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (see
https://www.sec.gov/about/laws/sea34.pdf and Sec. (3)(a)(1). )
regardless of how regulatory bodies will decide how to regulate decentralized exchanges, any 'talk' of being 5 steps ahead requires compliance with existing laws, i.e. registration with the SEC, etc. any other discussion about regulations is a moot point if this is not even done.
so, the question is, do we forge ahead and largely ignore regulations, but have our own internal ones that appear to mimic various international regulatory bodies, or perform an obligatory dance citing definitions, current regulations and law, and attempting to decipher how they apply to bts, users, issuers of UIAs, virtual currencies, etc. before finally mom and dad put a stop to the dance and teach us how to waltz?
basically, i think you can regard any UIA as a stock issued by a(n) (un)registered company and that any `promise of profit' is based on the success of said company, whose business model is in collection of fees, at which point dividends are re-distributed to shareholders. this is no different than investing in any other company that issues common stock for sale.
there are all sorts of ways to interpret the law. why bother? any 'authority' is just going to regulate in a manner that benefits the regulatory agency the most -- be it in monetary gain or in a manner that allows for the maximum power of said 'authority.' in turn, we should do the same. interpret the law in such a way that maximizes our power, monetary gain, etc. then, judges can decide. but ... it becomes an even murkier issue when this is internationally based. which nation-state's laws hold for regulation? nation-states that have the physical presence of a committee member in their jurisdiction or the server that runs the witness or what.
at the end of the day, someone else will come along and regulate us into whatever manner they see fit (probably with the criteria outlined above). the idea is to leave the code modular enough to be able to easily abide by their rules. until then, we should do as we see fit -- which is no different than what we already have been doing.
Topic: New Stealth Transfer Worker ($1000) (Read 72713 times)
