and it seems like many actual users of Kagi (and Orion?) have contributed, so this isn't a (completely) a "big VC firm will enshitify this". This gives me hope. I wish I would qualify to invest in things like this...
If you have the money to participate and lie about having/earning more money then you qualify.
There is no constitutional way to prevent you from investing based on net worth, so the law places consequences on the companies offering investments.
And the only time this affects the company is if they were relying on a regulatory exemption that also allows unaccredited investors, in which case you should have just participated as an unaccredited investor and they were supposed to verify.
Otherwise, the law says “self-certify”, which is the state sanctioned term for lying.
It doesn't need to be a protected class and is not how I would argue
If a fine or sanction from the government was applied to the investor themselves based on net worth, I would argue 5th amendment and 14th amendment equal application of laws, and 1st amendment's freedom of speech citing the Citizen's United case where money movement is speech
I think that would be resilient in most circuits and certainly scotus
