Jake Chervinsky On Whether ICOs Are Scams

So who is Jake Chervinsky? 

Well he’s a lawyer, but he’s not yours. If you’ve come across Jake’s Twitter page, you’ll definitely know what I mean by that, just saying. As general counsel for the decentralised lending protocol, Compound, the lawyer started his early career looking into white-collar financial crimes. Coupled with having graduated law school during the most recent global recession and his experience in the field, Jake sure has a vast knowledge of the banking industry. But what about bitcoin?

As per CoinDesk, Chervinsky said:

"When I learned about bitcoin, it struck me as an engineering solution to what I saw as a whole group of intractable political problems – misaligned incentives, rent-seeking behavior, disrespect for privacy rights,"

In 2018, Jake joined Kobre & Kim, a boutique law firm that specifically looks into all fraud and misconduct cases. Speaking to CD, the lawyer spoke on Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), which have been a controversial thing in the space these past few years. Some have made fools of people and stolen their money which has seen a lot of them being labelled as scams before they get a

chance to announce it.

“I believe we should only use the term “scam” to describe outright frauds – that is, the intentional use of trickery, deceit, or other dishonest means to deprive people of their rightful money or property. In my view, the term “scam” has been greatly overused in the context of ICOs, most of which were simply doomed-to-fail business concepts rather than overtly fraudulent schemes.”