Business Ethics and Code of Conduct - 27 July 2023
I aim to have the most stringent code of conduct among ALL educational YouTube channels in tech and finance.
1. I do not take sponsorships
2. I do not publish paid referral links
3. I do not accept paid promotions
4. I do not invest other people’s money
5. I do not raise money or broker investments
6. I do not offer financial advisory services
7. I do not offer “buy calls” or “sell calls”
There is no service or group where CTO Larsson says “buy this now” or “sell that now”.
If someone is offering you calls, at least outside the biggest assets, you are probably the product (exit liquidity) - not the customer.
8. I do not offer any “crypto services”
I do not issue tokens. I do not sell tokens. I do not market tokens. I do not offer conversion services. I do not offer crypto trading or investment services. In short, I’m not a crypto or blockchain service provider.
9. I stay FAR away from any “pump & dump”
My small-ish channel won’t have any effect on assets worth hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. But for a penny tech stock, or a small cryptocurrency with a market cap of a few million, I could conceivably affect the price by talking about a project in a video, for example drawing attention to a possible TA chart pattern, or to their technology, or simply by mentioning their name, even if those things are already public.
From experience, this can happen no matter how many times I warn about the risks and highlight all the problems. People also sometimes selectively extract [and republish] parts of my videos, typically all the positive parts, while leaving all the risks and negative elements out, further aggregating this risk.
I will take every effort to not profit from any accidental price “pump” in any way. Specifically I will not sell any penny stock or crypto asset outside the top-100 coinmarketcap list in conjunction with the publication of a positive video or in the days following.
In short, no “pump & dump".
10. I do not exchange cryptocurrencies received
Even when paid with Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency for my course fee, I do not accept this Bitcoin to an “unhosted” wallet, where it could be argued that I am providing exchange services in case I then exchange this to a USD stable coin.
Instead, I am the customer of an exchange service provider. The service provider receives the Bitcoin from the end customer. The service provider checks it against any blacklists etc. The service provider converts it to a USD stable coin.
I am a customer of the exchange which handles Bitcoin payments,
exactly as I am a customer of PayPal which handles card payments.
11. I do not predict the future (unfortunately)
I offer timeless education and timeless analytics tools.
Technical Analysis (TA) of historical data is not a prediction of the future. TA is a tool that can aid in finding setups for favorable risk-reward and points of invalidation. This applies also to a trend proxy like Larsson Line, which is a mathematical formula for trend expression, not a prediction of the future.
Applying the principles of technical analysis formulated in 1930s on historical charts means that everyone who follow the same process and use the same tools will get the same result at the same time.
There is no magic. There is no reliance on my subjective opinions. You do not need me to predict the future.
The whole point of this channel is to equip you with education and tools so that you can steer your own ship.
All education and software analytics tools are timeless and generic for any technology asset.
12. I have no company with both external facing services and investment activity
My external facing company sells education. The course fee can be paid in PayPal, bank transfer or in Bitcoin/stablecoin. This company does not do investment/trading, even with its own profits.
My company that does investment is a separate company, where I only invest my own money (own group dividend, own group shareholder contribution). This company does not offer any external services to anyone whatsoever.
This setup gives next level of transparency and clarity of both business models and money flow.
13. I do not do paid collabs
Collabs, interviews etc are:
- Unpaid
- Not endorsements - not of the other person's opinions, not of the other person's ethics, not of the other person's business - not in any way
14. I do not sell your data (obviously!)
I thought this goes without saying, but apparently it's a thing to sell people's contact details to projects. I don't and I won't .
Trust Takes 20 Years to Build
Trust takes decades to build, and only minutes to destroy.
During the first half of my career, through 20 years I built trust in the telecom industry. In the end, CTOs of direct competitors trusted me to discuss their deepest technology strategies.
Trust is difficult to create, and impossible to copy. It can't be faked. It has to be genuinely earned.
In this new phase of my life as an educator and as an investor, I aim to deserve that level of trust again. I hope that I eventually have earned the same level of trust from you, dear viewers and customers here, as I had from those CTOs. That will take many, many years this time around too.
I want to proactively take additional steps above and beyond what is required under any law and regulation. Many YouTubers say that, some with questionable conduct. I must aim much higher.
I feel to build that level of trust, the CTO Larsson channel must operate at the highest level of ethics and conduct AMONG ALL educational YouTube channel in tech and finance.
As an investor myself, I am very much supportive of regulation which provides real investor protection.
I am not a “cypherpunk rebel”. I don’t like “testing the rules”. I like paying my taxes, following the rules and sleeping well at night. I am proud of our Swedish society and I feel we get a lot back from the taxes we pay.
I have Sweden’s best accounting firm, AND a global top-5 auditing firm. We have immaculate records. I really try to go above and beyond in terms of rule adherence.
I am not perfect, and I have done many mistakes. When I stumbled into the creator industry and the blockchain tech industry as an engineer, I was unaware of many of the complications and how unclear everything really was. But I learned from those mistakes. And learnings compound.
Today, 10,000 lawyers in the US still cannot even agree on what cryptocurrencies are. Are they currencies? Commodities? Securities? A combination? Which ones? What about the exchanges, are they securities exchanges or commodity exchanges? What are the rules around sponsorships, promotions, news coverage? Can you even mention Ethereum in public or are you then a promotor of illegal securities? It seemed like that could possibly be the case, until the video surfaced of the SEC chairman himself talking very favourably about some specific blockchain projects a couple of years ago.
If 10,000 US lawyers can't figure this out over half a decade, I don't think I can either - as a Swedish engineer. My only real conclusion from all the legal mess in the US is that everyone better move AS FAR AWAY from any unclear “line” as humanly possible, while the US lawyers argue about what is permitted and what isn’t.
I think Sweden did a much better job from the start and clearly classified cryptocurrencies as
“Other assets” which have a clear legal, accounting and tax framework. EU also took a much better approach than the US, in my opinion, by choosing to develop a new framework for cryptocurrencies, MiCA, instead of trying to apply 100 year old legislation.
The regulatory landscape and my own understanding of the pitfalls and risks of educating on YouTube has evolved significantly over the years. I will continue to update this list as that evolution continues.
For now, I believe this list is the most stringent code of conduct among any similar youtuber or educator. As it should be.
Disclosure
Ways I make money in 2023:
- I invest myself
- I offer timeless education, with timeless market analytics tools
- I receive YouTube ad revenue sharing (insignificant, less than 0.5% of other revenue)
That’s it.
(I use "I" here loosely. Of course it's technically my wholly controlled companies that make the money.)
I also have a separate consultancy company, but I have not taken any new consultancy assignments in years and I have no active consultancy assignment in it today.
Estimated cumulative consulting revenue for 2022-2023 is SEK 0.
I do not foresee this to change in 2024-2025, unless something extraordinary comes along (basically on the level of Elon Musk calls and wants help).
I hold Bitcoin and Ethereum exposure, both through company ownership and in a personal capacity, as ETP price tracker certificates in ISK through my bank. I also hold exposure to stocks and other crypto assets.
I am a small minority share holder in Moralis AB, another Swedish company which has developed a programming framework for blockchain development. It is not investable by the public and it has no token. We cooperate on some content.
FOR GENERAL INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY, NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE. All information presented in videos and social media posts reference an opinion of the speaker and is for general information purposes only. You must not construe any information presented as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. Nothing presented constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell financial instruments. I am not a licensed financial advisor or registered investment advisor. For financial or investment advice, seek a duly licensed professional in your jurisdiction, who can take your specific situation into account. Past performance does not indicate future results. Technical Analysis does not predict the future. You are always at high risk of losing all invested funds.
My objective with all public content is to educate and help you reflect on and improve your own analysis, not to replace it. To succeed, you need to be captain of your own ship.
Should you have any questions about this Code of Conduct or our adherence to it, please email me at [email protected]
Revision History
26 July 2023
- First Published Revision
27 July 2023
- Added items 13-14
