[dharma1]

Cancer is a bad word for this for many reasons.

Word choice aside, I agree many ICOs are scams, and in general I think it's not a great idea to give someone very large sums of money up front to build something, with very few strings attached. The immediate global liquidity of tokens is both good and bad. Having access to a lot of funding early on, especially with no accountability, even with most well-intended projects often leads to building the wrong thing, stuff people don't want or need, since there is less pressure to validate the product (for instance via revenue).

I would like to believe self-regulation and peer pressure, once transparency standards are established, will happen. De facto tools for governance and transparency of token projects is something I think is sorely needed, and it's something projects like Aragon - https://aragon.one - are building.

I think ICOs are an interesting way of funding certain types of projects that would not be viable through traditional VC funding - certain types of open source projects for instance. And I think we could see the token concept take off in unexpected places. But I hope the cryptocurrency/token ecosystem will move towards a more sustainable direction that generates real value for people instead of the casino like atmosphere today.

[dreit1]

Thank you. ICO's fundamentally change the nature of global marketplace dynamics. Whether its stocks, bonds, tokens, or whatever other digital asset, it is now shown that these items can be traded by anyone, anywhere, and anytime.

This is a fundamental shift in how markets have traditionally worked. Accessible by few, siloed by regional boundaries.

This post comes off as another angry bitcoin maximalist, upset that blockchain isn't being used the way they want it to be used

[marcus_holmes]

> ICO's fundamentally change the nature of global marketplace dynamics. Whether its stocks, bonds, tokens, or whatever other digital asset, it is now shown that these items can be traded by anyone, anywhere, and anytime.

Sorry, what? this is literally untrue, and pure bullshit.

Anyone can buy any of these at any time already. There are online marketplaces that trade these things 24/7.

The only restriction is that a potential investor has to prove that they realise that the value of an investment can go down as well as up. That, in other words, they're not an idiot, and won't demand that the government "do something about it" when their investment tanks.

Of course, because of that niggling little regulation, you can't spam everyone with ridiculous promises of untold wealth if they'll only invest their life savings in the latest ponzi scheme. Until ponzicoin came along, of course.

[dreit1]

"The only restriction is that a potential investor has to prove that they realise that the value of an investment can go down as well as up. That, in other words, they're not an idiot, and won't demand that the government "do something about it" when their investment tanks."

So you're saying that isn't possible? Very few people in the ICO space are demanding the government do anything.

Also live outside of the US and you'll realize how untrue your statement is. You'll see very quickly that many services that deal with asset trading are region locked (Robin Hood) for example