In an interview by @bluerocktalk (Connie Willis), Jared Rice Snr, of Arise Bank discusses events that have put a substantial obstacle in the way of the ICO and the project.
The interview by Willis is of the style where the interviewee tells the story, with minimal prompting. Jared Rice Snr, discusses a raid on the offices of Arise Bank.
"I got woke up with guns pointed at me. So, you know, put your hands where we can see 'em, so obviously we did. It was pretty weird. At first, we didn't even know why they were here. They bought us outside, handcuffed us."
He goes on to say that the agents who arrived were all armed, one even carrying a shield. In the interview, he states that it was overkill.
"... they showed up, wanting to know where everything was. We gave them everything they asked for. They asked for passwords to accounts. We gave it to them."
No one was hurt, or injured according to the interview, but it does appear that, as Jared Rice Snr continues in the interview: "They seized a lot of the servers, the computers, the phones."
"AriseBank is a vision." ; Rice Snr continues, promising that this will be fought, and it is just the beginning of a battle for decentralization.
The vision remains:
AriseBank is the first decentralized banking product ever created and features one of the largest cryptocurrency platforms ever built, with services like AriseID, aEx, aiExchanger, aTransfer, AriseCard, aTMs, aPocket, aPay and more. aBank is completely decentralized, which means it's never hosted in our data center and we never touch your money. It's entirely hosted on your desktop and mobile devices.
I highly recommend that you check out the full interview. It is best to hear it for yourself.
This raid puts the vision of Arise at significant risk, and may cripple the movement, however, Rice remains hopeful, and wants to continue with his fight to decentralize banking. There will be more to come on this news in the future.
SEC claims that Arise is a security, while Rice contends that its a utility token to be used on the platform itself. The Arise team state that they will be releasing an official release on the events that occurred soon. Thanks to Connie Willis for first bringing this news to the public.
Edit:
From the Telegram channel, put together by @plaguewind:
Can anyone provide evidence of this raid and seizure?
There's nothing yet. We're waiting on an updated release from the team later today.
I will be making a further post within 24 hours with whatever information is at hand.
I understand that there is a certain level of suspicion surrounding whether the raids occured on the basis of there being no evidence of this occurring outside of Willis' radio interview with Rice.
Here is a link to a cease and desist order saying they should not use the word "Bank". I would consider this evidence of action. (this is more evidence of a reason for a raid) https://www.dob.texas.gov/public/uploads/files/Laws-Regulations/orders/2018-001.pdf
I spoke with a member of the arise team today. They've assured me they'll have an official statement "tomorrow". Once that's in my hands, and I get a chance to write about it, it'll be here.
Here is an American Banker article on it, which provides interesting reading.
I read that over lunch, and indeed it does!
No surprise this happened at all. I threw some found money at the ICO. It's not the first time I've been an owner in something that was raided illegally by the U.S. Government.
I woke up one morning to find that the Liberty Dollar offices had been raided and the silver stolen. It was chilling. Ultimately, they can fight this but they will likely lose because the government will make up the rules as they go along.
The level of immaturity and unprofessional attitude exhibited by the admin on telegram had red flags all over it.....lesson learned...
Name them. Name every agent involved, here on the blockchain.
Name the prosecuter, name the judge; may their great grandchildren change their names to avoid the stink of it.
Some members of the Bitshares discord channel have raised doubts about whether the raid actually took place. So far, we only have Jared's account of it. I could find no other third party reporting from other sources when I googled it. One member on discord with knowledge of the US legal system has conducted paid searches of case files and has not found any reference to Arise Bank or Jared Rice in relation to this incident.
No local media has reported on the raid.
Jared is still free to speak (i.e. not in custody).
We shall wait to see if there are delays in case files being uploaded, but at the moment there is a lack of evidence. If names of those involved can be found that would at least provide evidence that the raid did in fact occur.
This may be corraborating evidence. Looked official to me. https://www.dob.texas.gov/public/uploads/files/Laws-Regulations/orders/2018-001.pdf
That looks like the old original cease and desist notice served to them on Jan 5, and which they responded to publicly here on Steem. According to this coindesk article, "since no submission was received, the department said the order is final and non-appealable".
So did AriseBank reply to Cease and Desist notice here, but not actually mail them a reply?
Certainly, the timeline of the end of the appeal period ending and AriseBank still using the word "bank" would be consistent with action being taken, but that document is not the required evidence we need to substantiate the claim of a raid.
Thanks for sharing the link to their public response. I had not seen it. There is some interesting reading out there.
Update: Case notes have now been unsealed and are available. See Discord channel.
It doesn't look good for Arise.
Will be interesting indeed to see how this develops.
There's a few names in the Radio Interview - we may have to wait for the official press release to get the full story.
I invested in the ICO because I believe in the vision. My focus is not on getting my funds back, but instead how a government can squash someone's acting out their vision which will do no physical harm to another, because, guns.
Interesting. The plot possibly thickens.
They had to know it was coming. Big banking won't let decentralization happen if they can help it. Pretty early for it to have already happened though, I guess nobody is wasting any time trying to nip decentralization in the bud. It's up to all of us as individuals to keep pushing and help support those that will make it happen.
Amen. The idea is what is valuable, and you can't suppress that.
yeah they were served... https://www.dob.texas.gov/public/uploads/files/Laws-Regulations/orders/2018-001.pdf
I'm surprised that the only claim on that document is that Arise team misused the word "bank."
If that was the only wrongdoing then why doesnt Arise just... not use the word "bank"?
People you must learn who rule this world: it is C300 since 200 years the 300 richest families out of black european nobiity... when we tried to cut their heads in france in 1789.. they morphed into Black Nobility Sovereign Bankers under Napoleon... they are few extremy rich and extremly well informed... I knew this bank was on their target list...
Thnaks bro ... Resteem power
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.
The banks and the governments are not going to give up control.
Cloudcoin is per to per and out of there hands.
https://digitalfrontiernews.com/?affiliates=226
All I can say is WOW!
Thank you for sharing. I wasn't thinking about decentralized banking. Now, all can think is that is a perfect application for a decentralized blockchain.
Bitshares -a decentralized exchange- has many of these capabilities. It has the ability to decentralized accounts and send US dollar denominated assets to other account. While mainly and exchange, it can do payments as well.
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STOPThis is quite interesting. I also caught the comment that people have been searching for legal documents in regards to this "case" and claims made by the so-called defendant. Sometimes, people pull bullshit scams to cover an exit scam. I guess time will tell on this one.
The legal documents were "sealed" and not available online until yesterday. The SEC has published a press release.
I will admit that I do not understand a lot of what happened. But things looked fishy to me. I saw red flags, but I cannot know or prove if this was legitimate or not. In my mind though, this is a good case for the courts to look at. If this was a con/scam the courts did us a huge favor by killing it early. If it is legitimate, the idea will be reborn are presented in a better more compliant way.
Sometimes scam and incompetence are hard to distinguish. Don't assign to malice what could just as easily be assigned to stupidity. "Bank" and an offer to US citizens was like putting a big red target on its back for the SEC.
Interesting ... hard to know if you can believe anything this Jared Rice guy says of course, so the 'SEC raid' could just be a cover-up excuse for them packing and running and failing to deliver anything (since they clear never had anything that were claiming to begin with) ..... but I do feel good with the idea that my reporting them to the SEC played a part, and that my pointing out that they are a scam, and pointing out all the red flags they raise in comments on steemit, is validated, and maybe helped save a few people from losing their money to this total scam :)
Shit!
AriseBank stated it had purchased an FDIC-insured bank named KFMC Bank Holding Company. The SEC shows this, as well, was a lie: KFMC is not an FDIC-insured financial institution.
Here is the SEC filing which makes for an interesting read https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2018/comp-pr2018-8.pdf