Quote from: toffoo on May 08, 2012, 12:46:45 PM

I am no securities lawyer, but I did work a number of years in the financial industry in both USA and UK as a registered representative, and I know that taking money from the public as an "investment" and offering "securities" in return is a highly regulated activity in pretty much every legal jurisdiction.

In the USA, JOBS Act that relaxes these requirements significantly, both WRT investor requirements and in solicitations you may make.

IMNSHO, USA just legalized GLBSE on April 5, 2012.

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Now, I suppose that it can be argued that all these Bitcoins are just funny money,

Irrelevant.

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and these securities being issued in Bitcoins are just virtual and therefore don't count because they only exist in the cyberworld.

No, the GLBSE securities are not "issued in bitcoin." A security is a thing, a unique and independent legal entity. That GLBSE makes it easy to buy and sell with bitcoins is incidental; GLBSE could just as easily use USD or EUR or gold or bananas.

If GLBSE tightens up its boilerplate and some requirements (i.e. investor limit), it is quite possible that an IPO on GLBSE could be a fully legal security in the US.

In general, even excluding securities law, GLBSE could create contracts between all market participants, where everyone has a click-through agreement (==contract) describing basic rules.