Quote from: smartguyinthailand on February 17, 2017, 02:54:01 PM

Quote from: Vaelin on February 17, 2017, 02:51:58 PM

Quote from: calvinstm on February 17, 2017, 11:27:39 AM

Quote from: bcmine on February 17, 2017, 10:50:45 AM

people from us are excluded from the service and thats something going to change in the future? hehehe

https://iconomi.net/terms-of-use
4. Users from the United States
...

Okay, I'm going to settle this question for you guys once for all. Anyone who makes a big deal out of this clearly has very little understanding & knowledge of the financial environment in the US.

In the US, regular, everyday people are barred from investing in hedge funds or participating in any high risk investment activity like angel investing (due to rules such as - SEC regulation D, section 506). Among other things, American people are also forbidden to own a multi-currency bank account or opening a financial service (trading/bank) accounts in most foreign countries. For instance, are you aware that US residents are not allowed to use OkCoin? (most financial institutions simply would not accept US clients because of cumbersome regulations).

So you can say that the good o' USA is like a nanny state or even a police state at the moment.

In other words, regular folks in the US with little money are almost completely barred from participating in any highly profitable activity, only "accredited investors" or rich folks are allowed to do so. On the other hand, those rich folks ("accredited investors") are almost always millionaires and have access to things like hedge funds or offshore investment funds.

However, there are ways to circumvent this issue -- asset management or trust companies are allowed to make global investment. So one way for everyday US investor to get into Iconomi is through asset management companies or offshore investment funds like I discussed earlier. But as I said, the big money is with the fund mangers.

USA is an unusually case (you can probably make a case that it's worse than China in terms of financial freedom), so it's really not a big deal, ok?

The T&Cs don't refer to inhabitants of the US, rather it refers to all US citizens, which encompasses millions of expats. Moreover it doesn't distinguish between regular folks and accredited investors.

I suspect this isn't because regular people are locked out of high-profit investing, but rather because of FATCA. Any financial organisation serving US citizens has to report the activities of those US citizens to the US government. If they fail to comply, there is something like a 30% tax on international financial transactions coming in and out of the US.

The US is one of only two countries in the world that demands their citizens pay tax wherever they are in the world (the other is either Somalia or Sudan, i've forgotten which). So the US government is essentially forcing non-US companies into dolling out information on US accounts in order to hunt down people who aren't paying tax.

Non-US financial services avoid the headache of having to report the activities of their US clientele to the US government by denying US citizens the use of their services.

Source: I am a US citizen living in the UK.

so is it a big deal then or just FUD?

Well the same rules are true of absolutely any financial entity operating outside of the US that want US clientele. The same is true of Melonport, for instance, which is why they did not allow US citizens to participate either. So there is no competitive advantage for other non-US firms. Moreover, in the future, Iconomi can just comply with FATCA, which would open up their platform to US investors. I suspect it is a lot of work which is why they have not decided to go down that route from the outset, but it would be well worth it at a later date.

EDIT: Also the Republicans want to get rid of FATCA, so it probably won't be an issue for much longer.