Thank you for your detailed response. The securities laws are certainly a worry for people running these ICOs. I have often worried that eventually Steemit will have issues because people are getting these payouts but Steemit doesn't submit information to the Internal Revenue Service. It is sort of a gray area because it isn't in US dollars and they probably wouldn't need to have a money transmitters license as well because the Internal market is only exchanging STEEM and Steem Dollars.
In the United States if you get paid over $500 from an affiliate program then a copy of that information gets sent to the IRS. With this there is nothing sent but they may or may not have issues with that side of it because they aren't dealing with the ultimate sale to US Dollars.
The legalities of this stuff is something I don't like to even think about to be honest.
I think, if the financial dictators of the USA, especially the racketeers in the IRS, would see Steem way down the line as ripe targets for propaganda coups about the benefits of government centralised regulation. They just passed a law demanding all US citizens declare their cryptos to customs when they pass the border.
In my opinion, if you are still in the USA, you are a masochist. Much of the rest of the world, even the second world, is more free than the USA. I mean, the IRS even claims to be able to tax you when you are resident in another country! No other government is as audacious as this, and not only that, this is of course going to lead to a lot more conflict between them and pretty much all the rest of the world except UK, USA and the western europe. Especially Russia and China.
No, there is no, current, tax liability risk related to the way Steem works. Even the minimum balance/account price thing is outside of their jurisdiction. The only thing that will happen to us from them about Steem is going to be no different to Bitcoin, Dash, Ethereum, and what have you. The ICOs, on the other hand, that could get sticky.
There are advantages and disadvantages here but I don't have a lot to compare it to since I haven't ever lived in another country.
I like our national parks. That is one advantage to being here.
Here in Eastern europe, we have vast forests that are less fucked up by governments than over there. If you are comfortable with the situation there, and don't see the need to migrate, that's your prerogative. I migrated out of Australia because the government was such an inordinate obstacle to my prosperity growing. I landed on the street, for a while, but the benefits of greater freedom are now starting to bear fruit, as I sit here reading from a 4k display attached to a computer with a 8 core 16 thread processor, 32Gb and an NVMe SSD...
Most people manage ok under whatever government, because most people are not as badly messed up by the life-toxic businesses that are empowered by governments, and are more susceptible to propaganda and more likely therefore to become complacent and satisfied. I am neither of these, so I have to be a lot more agile.
I'm glad that everything turned around for you. You are one of the more interesting figures here on Steemit. Some of the stuff you have written before is on another level. I'm pretty technical even though I may not seem like it from my blog posts but it was hard for me to even keep on the same page.
I'm actually learning a lot by being on Steemit. Even little stuff that isn't technical. I found out the other day that there are elephants in Sri Lanka. I knew they lived in India but didn't realize they were on that island. :-)
Yeah, the information sharing is probably the heart of what makes steem valuable. Two days ago @huntiii put me onto Jack Kruse, and that led me also down a few other rabbitholes, and this would never have happened if I hadn't piped up in a comment to parrot the line most people stick to about electrosensitivity - scepticism. The contrary evidence @huntiii put me onto was so compelling it's going to change my life, I am dead certain about it.