More than 40 U.S. states and Canadian provinces comprise the North American Securities Administrators Association in charge of the recently launched investigation of “fraudulent Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs)” and other “cryptocurrency-related investment products”.
So far, the plan has purportedly started 70 investigations. President of the NASAA, Joe Borg, said that “the persistent exploitation of the crypto ecosystem by fraudsters is a significant threat to Main Street investors in the United States and Canada”. He also related the current investigation to the 1990s initiative to fight fraud in the internet stock sector during the dot-com bubble.
Joseph Rotunda, the director of enforcement at the Texas State Securities Board said that “the market for cryptocurrency investments is saturated with fraud, and our work is only revealing the tip of the iceberg”. His agency previously issued a warning letter to U.K.- based BTCrush that it was violating securities laws with its marketing. They also issued a cease and desist order to Bitconnect back in January. These recent events reveal that government regulators are starting to take action on investigating what they perceive as fraudulent ICOs and cryptocurrency activities.
Unclear Targets
So far, there does not appear to be elaborate details or goals of their investigation plans other than they will focus on ICOs and cryptocurrency investment products. In governments and private businesses, it can readily be observed that a lack of informed strategic planning will typically lead to lackluster or failed results. This is concerning in that it creates more uncertainty, which regulators are supposedly against, in that the regulators may accidentally sweep up legitimate ICOs/cryptocurrencies or tangle legitimate ICOs/cryptocurrencies in legal nightmares. From this concern arises the importance of decentralized exchanges such as Bisq. Even if the NASAA does accidentally crackdown on legitimate ICOs and cryptocurrencies, they will still have a way to reach individuals through decentralized exchanges.
The NASAA alludes its current crackdown to the crackdown on fraudulent internet stocks of the 1990s, but the fraud during that period was not nearly as clear as commonly believed. The dot-com bubble is viewed as a bad and irrational speculative phase when many companies were taking advantage of average investors, but in reality, many companies were on the right track, but just ahead of their time. Amazon, Priceline, and eBay are just a few examples of companies that went on to thrive after the dot-com bubble period. Thus, to prevent harmful restrictions on future economic benefits, the NASAA investigation has to walk a tightrope to not burden legitimate ICOs and cryptocurrencies that are legitimately attempting to benefit consumers.
Dash legitimately benefits consumers through its transparency
Many regulators are fearful of cryptocurrencies because they believe that they cannot see what is happening. However, Dash has been very transparent with its operations and development. Every quarter, The Dash Core team releases a quarterly report of their developments to improve Dash. Any transaction can be viewed on the blockchain. Dash funds its development with a governance and treasury system that requires proposals to be submitted and voted on in the open. Dash Force News is committed to covering all aspects of Dash, even if it might be bad news, to keep the community informed. Overall, Dash is structured to work in favor of the consumer and investor because of its incentive structure.
Dash has set itself apart from other cryptocurrencies with its demonstrated record of consumer and merchant adoption along with its maintenance of a fast, inexpensive, secure, and private cryptocurrency. Nevertheless, Dash is still committed to continuously demonstrating its transparency to regulators who seem to continuously be skeptical of cryptocurrencies.
