Now, that IPO type model (which will also be Etherium I believe) isn't necessarily a scam just because it breaks accepted "rules".
Selling shares of a new tech to the market at whatever price the market will bear, is not scamming. I don't have any evidence that NXT is scamming anyone. I have also sold shares of my companies to the public.
What I don't believe is that these things will become currency. At least my shares have never succeeded on that
I'm not sure the IPO model is even legal (in the US) unless the developers register with the SEC. How is selling shares in Nxt different than selling shares in Satoshi Dice? We know Mr. Voorhees recently got nailed for this: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=637435.0
At this point I think it is a semantic argument. These 2.0 currencies can be programmed to essentially do whatever they want.
I don't think they sold it as an IPO, but a few people have commented on it as such. If the intention of the founders can't
be proven in a court of law, then where does it go? And even if it can be proven, I don't think a decentralized network is going
to be taken down anytime soon. I believe it can also just be "forked" as it is open source? This is going to be a huge headache
for the SEC or any government entity that tries to wrangle with it imo.
Fun times are a coming...
I disagree. Now that I've read up on the Voorhees deal, I think this will become a very big issue if any of these 2.0 currencies really take off. You said "these 2.0 currencies can be programmed to essentially do whatever they want," but that's not the issue. The issue is the initial distribution of the coins. If a "closed group" benefits by selling pre-mined/insta-mined tokens to the public, then I think the SEC could argue that those tokens were unregulated securities. And in my mind they would be correct in their classification (not that I am defending the existence of the SEC, however).
Take Nxt for instance: the initial coins were distributed to the founders, who then proceeded to sell them to the public. Nxt admits this fact openly. Given the blatant Nxt (and other alt-coin) pumping that goes on here, one could argue that the founders were aggressive in soliciting investment from the public, and argue further that the founders made unfounded and misleading claims to attract investment. So I think the SEC could come down harder on 2.0 developers who use pre/insta-mines than they did on Voorhees.
So, yes, I could completely foresee the SEC going after the founders of any "IPO'd" virtual currency who benefitted financially be selling virtual tokens to the public without registering those securities with the SEC.