I think perhaps Filecoin is the first legitimate ICO legally issued to accredited investors on a crowd equity platform, thus it was probably snapped up and considered to be more professional and legitimate.
Regulators have flawed logic with regards to accredited investors (wealthier people). They think accredited investors are better investors. That is not true quite often and not true most of the time when it comes to technology.
Just because you say so? Look at all the worthless ICO scams that people in our crypto ecosystem speculate on.
The main point is not that accredited investors are more astute, but that it limits the speculation on speculating about greater fools. The goal is all about limiting the liquidity (aka pumps) of scams. Because the securities are restricted and can’t be resold and traded, not until an IPO and restricted to trading on regulated exchanges. All these factors throttle the level of extremely wasteful and potentially catastrophic bubble/mania speculation nonsense that we see proliferating now in crypto.
Filecoin’s disadvantage is that with the tokens being issued as securities, they are restricted and can’t be traded on exchanges now and eventually after being registered then can only trade on registered exchanges and can never be spent P2P as a cryptocurrency. IOW, FIlecoin’s tokens aren’t a cryptocurrency.
ICOs are securities. And they will all become delisted and illegal to trade in the future, as the regulators in the nations slowly ramp up their enforcement actions.
Additionally those who are trading ICOs now, are doing illegal trading.
Those fools in our ecosystem are going to get their fingertips burned up to their armpits over time, as the regulators clawback, confiscate bank accounts, assets, and put people in jail. Mark my word.Also legal securities issuance is not limited to accredited investors.
There is crowdfunded equity now.
EOS Platform tokens are securities and very likely they have been illegal issued to USA non-accredited investors. I wouldn’t touch that hot potato. Could get delisted by the SEC and become illegal to trade.
Meaning if you are trading EOS Platform tokens, you may be committing a crime. This could come back to haunt you some years from now, when the regulators get around to it.
EOS rejected users with US IP addresses and forced users to acknowledge that they read the Purchase Agreement, which stated that US persons are not allowed to purchase. I don't know if this will protect them sufficiently, but they did not solicit accredited or non-accredited investors from the U.S.
We have multiple threads on this forum instructing investors how to bypass the IP address restriction by employing a VPN.
Also the SEC regulations apply to US persons, even when they are traveling abroad, thus IP address limitation is not sufficient by itself.
One of the requirements which EOS did not do is putting the ICO offering behind a firewall and allowing investors to self-certify that they are accredited is not sufficient:
http://archive.is/VWZCYAnd even if EOS did comply with all those recommendations, that would only potentially absolve the culpability of the issuers to criminal and civil punishment. The tokens would still be classified as securities in any case. And securities have the problems listed above in bolded text.
Also the USA is not the only country that will be increasing their enforcement. EOS is going to be attacked by the regulators from numerous countries. Daniel Larimer has committed a very grave error. And anyone buying and trading EOS Platform tokens is committing a grave error that could come back to haunt them in the future. As of January 2017, the G20 countries have a cooperation agreement on financial crimes, taxation, and regulation. They will cooperate with each other on prosecuting those who have violated regulations in each nation-state. Those who offer securities willynilly as EOS and other ICOs have done, are going to be in a hell hole of trouble and woe. Maybe not immediately, but eventually.
Readers do not destroy yourselves by following the stupid herd. Consult an attorney and stop incriminating yourselves by being involved with illegal trading of securities.
Disclaimer: IANAL. This is not legal advice.