Have HoweyCoins? The SEC Wants You To Check Them Out!

The SEC posted a dummy website that offers a similar presentation to many ICO offerings in an effort to bring awareness to the scams and poor investments on the market.

The only problem is that the website mocks many real ICO's with the substance that offers real investment opportunity and utility. This because the fraudulent websites mimic the real ones and now the SEC is mocking them all.

Despite their good intentions, this may not have been the greatest idea to have ever been thought up, however, the mock-up is not without its useful points.

Let's take a look at HoweyCoins (likely a derivative of the Howey test) and make notes of the red flags.

HoweyCoins

Breaking it Down

"We anticipate OVER 1% daily returns, with DOUBLE 2% returns on Tier 1 investors in pre-ICO stage secured purchases. The average registered coin return over a two month period in 2017 was an amazing 72%. Based on market conditions, including record-setting prospects in both the digital asset and travel industries, we expect surpassing that BEFORE the Tier 2 offering closes."

3. Pump and dump


This is a classic scheme dating back years to the early days of Altcoins (ICO's) back when blockchain meant bitcoin before the block-colored software, IBM's cloudware, and just about anything resembling a database claimed to be a blockchain.

Coins are artificially pumped causing a buying frenzy then dumped by those who caused it.

"Our past two pumps have doubled value for the period immediately after the pump for returns of over 225%."

4. Testimonials


Let's face it. What reputable organization ever has "testimonials". Don't see these on Gemini, Bitstamp doesn't list a slue of these, and I don't recall Ethereum or ZCash ever promoting ICO's with testimonials.

Here's a tip. If it's an "ICO" it typically means nothing it was done yet, there's just an idea. If there's just an idea then what are these testimonials providing testimony for? They wouldn't know their head from their ass any more than you would as to the validity of the concept.

A testimonial is a big fat RED FLAG.

4. Whitepaper


Nothing is more telling than the one thing that makes the entire offering the most believable. The existence of a whitepaper.

We've said this in the past and here it goes again. You need to review the whitepaper and see what the offering is all about.

Allot of people open the whitepaper but they don't actually READ them.

At a glance, this whitepaper looks authentic. Until you actually read the document and see that it says a whole lot about a bunch of absolutely nothing backed with no statistics from bogus sources.

... and ... no math.

Mathematics explains the concept behind the technology that the offering is promoting, without this universal explanation there's no realistic concept behind the face of the theory, or in this case, the shit they're shoveling.

There are certainly some things to learn from the mock site, but it's nothing many people haven't stated before. The unfortunate thing is that this also mimics legitimate offerings and the SEC's intentions may not be pure "consumer protection" whereas government agencies tend to operate in a "blanket destruction" methodology.

Why take out the illegal shit when you can take out the pain in the ass at the same time?

Regardless, they do have a point. There are entirely too many ICO offerings that are nothing more than hot air.