[olympus]

The benefit of YC is specifically that they are a trusted club member, so investors have some idea about the chances that their investment will pay off. It's a good signal.

ICOs don't have the same level of trust because anybody can offer one. I'd rather have PG vouching for me than Kanye West. Sure, when Kanye tells his Twitter followers to buy your ICO it's going to go gangbusters, which is good for your company. But eventually enough of those ICOs are going to go sour in the public's eye and people will stop investing with them. YC will still be around after that.

[dustingetz]

The signal you speak of erodes as YC scales. From the outside we only see the effects of this a couple years later. So the tone of the conversation now would imply that the signal peaked several years ago.