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.
This is almost certainly the same reason that Melonport ICO was not open to US citizens either.
Source: I am a US citizen living in the UK.
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.
This is almost certainly the same reason that Melonport ICO was not open to US citizens either.
Source: I am a US citizen living in the UK.
My bad. I've lumped way too many things into my statement - at one point, I was talking about high-risk investments and SEC regulations... And later, I was talking about the difficulty for American citizens to obtain financial services in a foreign locale because of FATCA. I was just trying to make a point: US regulations can be very complicated and costly, and compliance can mean too much overhead added to the cost of doing business. That's why a lot of foreign based financial institutions & service companies choose not to enter the US market or work with US clients (even a lot of former US-based funds choose to leave the US in favor of places like Cayman).
You were correct in stating that foreign financial institutions mostly shunned US citizens nowaday because of FATCA and FBAR reporting requirements (I believe the insitutions are asked to submit detailed account info of their US clients). They just don't want the hassle, so they're avoiding US citizens altogether.
Thanks for the clarification.
Having said that, I stand by my original statement. I think Iconomi made a wise decision not to enter US retail fund market.. It's just not worth the effort since you can always attract investment from wealthy Americans by some other means.
