"Until poker chips and monopoly money are securities, the statement that "all tokens are securities" has no intellectually honest leg to stand on." -- Stan Larimer
Letter from Stan
Greetings Fellow Innovators,
It is my opinion that state and federal authorities don’t understand us. Instead of appreciating our entrepreneurial efforts and contributions to society, they fear us because of the bad acts of a few outsiders and the revolutionary nature of our innovations.
As you know, in recent days many investigations have been launched and cases filed against some in the community. We do not believe that regulators are attacking the industry out of malice, but from a lack of understanding. I believe it is important that we invest in defending ourselves competently against investigations and cases that are not well founded and that may set a far reaching precedent that could affect negatively the industry as a whole.
Further, reform is needed in how regulators treat members of our industry who have the fundamental right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. We have created a New Bill of Rights to help explain the revered original document to modern day authorities that may have forgotten their oaths to support and defend the Constitution.
I have established a legal defense trust for our community. It has been created with the intent of defending the blockchain community as a whole (not just BitShares) from cases brought from misunderstandings by regulators. These regulators often lack the comprehension of the technology (and noble philosophical underpinnings) of the industry. Unfortunately, that lack of understanding could have vast unintended consequences.
More importantly, the Trust will lobby for fundamental reforms in how our regulatory agencies do business with an eye to restoring respect for our constitutionally guaranteed human rights.
As the Community Defense Trust grows, we hope to come to the aide of many who are victims of unrestrained government power. However the Trust is not limited to defending against unfair government practices and violations of individual rights. We are equally concerned about defending the community against private individuals who seek to get others in trouble with the authorities by spreading malicious defamation and bogus charges against them. Thus, the Trust is chartered to deter such behavior by taking legal action in especially egregious cases, such as the Bitcoin Latina Scandal, where bad behavior on the part of its founder is an obvious case that could require legitimate government intervention.
But the current main objective of this fund is to support the defense of Jared Rice in the case filed by the SEC ( SEC vs Arise Bank, Jared Rice Sr., and Stanley Ford, 3-18 CV-186-M) in Dallas, Texas. Jared Rice is principally a programmer and coder, who is facing questionable charges of conducting a fraudulent unregistered offering. In this potential Trial of the Century much more is at stake than Jared's freedom. It is imperative that Jared Rice have available to him the services of lawyers who specialize in defending individuals against the SEC for the sake of the legal precedents that may be established if it all goes horribly wrong.
To date the Trust has raised and provided over $200K to partially cover the services of Edward T. M. Garland of the Garland, Samuel & Loeb Law Firm. But much more help is needed. If Jared cannot present his case in a way that the SEC understands, he may face severe penalties and be prevented from participating in the future in any blockchain business. THIS IS A THREAT TO ALL OF US. To that end, I seek your help and ask for your donations to pay for hiring such SEC specialists and mounting a vigorous defense of our industry.
Remember, if it can happen to anybody, it can happen to you!
Sincerely,
Stanley J. Larimer, Trustee
BitShares Community Defense Trust
defendtheblockchain.com
Visit Defend the Blockchain.com to learn how you can help!
http://defendtheblockchain.com/
Name Redacted
Have you reached out to the pineapple fund for your defense trust? They still have about $30M USD to donate
https://pineapplefund.org/
So I believe the best efforts could be made by working towards fixing this in the future. We need clear accurate comparable research on each coin opportunity. The questions would be like what you might fill out on a loan application at a bank, or in a business plan. Most of these projects take off with just a white paper, having a business degree, one of the major values in the business plan is not in making a pretty looking document. It is in answering all the hard questions. How are you going to differentiate yourself? If an ICO wants to raise millions of dollars, they should have a well thought out, and vetted business plan. This would include due diligence and some legal advice.
Yes, there is much we can do as long as we don't wind up creating a new Self Governing Body with too much power and too little compassion.
Ideally, we will create multiple decentralized authorities. This way no one will have the final say, but all will have enough reputation on the line to ask hard questions.
Stuck right now Stan but as soon as some collateral frees up I will make a donation. :)
Nice work setting this up! Have donated and praying for the correct outcome! P.s. good to see your a vegemite fan ;)
Thank you!
Buying bread from a man in Brussels
He was six-foot-four and full of muscles
I said, "do you speak-a my language?"
He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich
And he said
I come from a land down under
Where beer does flow and men chunder
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover, yeah
Men at Work :)
Brilliant use of the Braveheart image. Blockchain will set us free. It’s only a matter of time until the masses was up from their nightmare of debt and lies.
I agree with you. The state and the federal authorities usually care about the bad things that are being lost by some strangers and we are a victim of these actions
Highly rEsteemed @stan.
Great breakdown. I said to a cohort earlier, I'm not a fan of the "State" or "Bad Actors."
Speaking of "Bad Actors" you might want to look into the following in regards to,
10,000 views and climbing on THIS hit piece by @csthetruth.
Tone Vays doesn't seem to know a lot about blockchain technology
His opinion is an opinion.
The community needs to self-govern and clean up its act. If a bad actor is out there making ridiculous claims, we need to say "no." An ounce of prevention could have prevented the pound of cure that is now needed. Claims can be independently verified. People can do research. People can stop making claims that are false. Consider how other industries work together, -like how wifi standards are set- or wall street research takes place to set up standards. If the industry fails to clean up its act, government will be forced to act. If we don't want the government to be responsible for us, we need to be responsible for ourselves.
Actually, the community was in the process of saying a loud "no". Turns out they were wrong too, as the government is now discovering. We need vigilance AND tolerance.
This is such a needed effort! I do a lot of work exposing regulatory capture with venn diagrams, and there's little to no backlash from the public against the collusion taking place under the guise of regulation. The SEC is also battling for dominance with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission - the agency that swiftly handed LedgerX its futures trading license (you can see the blatant overlap between the two organizations below). I'm worried if the SEC backs off, it'll just be replaced by the CFTC - do you have any thoughts on that?
Well, the correct answer is that they each have a role to play for tokens that fit inside their domains. The problem is when they make claims like "all tokens are securities" or commodities that they are overstepping. Neither casino tokens or Monopoly money are securities or commodities and they have no jurisdictional authority there.
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Excellent post!!
thank you @stan :) !