<story><title>Coinbase Index Fund</title><url>https://blog.coinbase.com/announcing-coinbase-index-fund-3925fbf548db</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bufferoverflow</author><text>This whole regulation is unneeded. You can bring your money to a casino and put it all on zero. Or buy  a thousand lottery tickets. But investing in risky businesses needs to be walled off to the wealthy.&lt;p&gt;What we really need is the real consequences for fraud &amp;#x2F; false financial claims.</text></item><item><author>AndrewGaspar</author><text>&amp;quot;Available to US accredited investors.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;It seems a little ironic that any Joe Blow with a credit card can buy cryptocurrency, at presumably higher risk since he&amp;#x27;s managing the assets himself, but he can&amp;#x27;t invest in this fund.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>arcticbull</author><text>At the casino your risks are known, and well-defined. In blackjack with basic strategy your expected value is, what, 49%? Craps, it&amp;#x27;s similar. Just look it up. Nobody at the table playing, or even running the show, can manipulate the outcome except by changing the parameters of the game as posted in the (I assume) regulated odds boards.&lt;p&gt;Investing in an unregulated market is absolutely nothing like that. Your outcome is undefined, but you&amp;#x27;re subject to front-running, tape painting, wash trading, fake news stories and tens of other well-known scams.&lt;p&gt;The regulations aren&amp;#x27;t to stop the poor from making money. If it were a sure-fire way to make money, everyone would just do it all the time. It&amp;#x27;s the Trumpian &amp;quot;trade wars are easy to win&amp;quot; argument. If it&amp;#x27;s easy, everyone would win, so nobody would win, end of story. It&amp;#x27;s to limit people to what they can afford to lose (or at least try). And it&amp;#x27;s done in the social good also, as people who become insolvent then utilize the social safety net to get back on their feet.&lt;p&gt;Yes, we need the real consequences, and what you&amp;#x27;re describing is literally regulation.</text></comment>
<story><title>Coinbase Index Fund</title><url>https://blog.coinbase.com/announcing-coinbase-index-fund-3925fbf548db</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bufferoverflow</author><text>This whole regulation is unneeded. You can bring your money to a casino and put it all on zero. Or buy  a thousand lottery tickets. But investing in risky businesses needs to be walled off to the wealthy.&lt;p&gt;What we really need is the real consequences for fraud &amp;#x2F; false financial claims.</text></item><item><author>AndrewGaspar</author><text>&amp;quot;Available to US accredited investors.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;It seems a little ironic that any Joe Blow with a credit card can buy cryptocurrency, at presumably higher risk since he&amp;#x27;s managing the assets himself, but he can&amp;#x27;t invest in this fund.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Zelphyr</author><text>The Libertarian in me agrees but then I think of the psychology of how people approach casino gambling vs business investing.  For the former, I feel like people know going in that the odds are in favor of the house and they come to terms with that by saying to themselves that its entertainment.  In other words, they kind-of expect to get screwed.&lt;p&gt;In business investing its the opposite.  They really do think they stand a chance at making millions even when the odds may actually be worse than gambling in some cases, especially if they fail to do their due diligence.&lt;p&gt;So maybe instead of regulation we simply need a legal, notarized document signed for every investment that states &amp;quot;I am aware that I stand a very high chance of losing all of my money and relinquish my rights to sue anyone involved unless outright fraud has been established.&amp;quot;  Probably still wouldn&amp;#x27;t work, but its worth consideration.</text></comment>