Trouble is, many (most?) of those ICOs are outright scams, many others are just utterly lame and will never produce anything worthwhile. I don't think that's the right way to grow the "cryptoeconomy" and in any case it would be naive to expect that this whole mess could last. Governments are already stepping in - e.g. the SEC wants to regulate the ICOs.
Most ICOs do not accept participation from the US residents anyway, I don´t think is going to have that much of an effect. The market may change, but I hope it will still be there for a few years.
The SEC is just an example. The point is - this whole ICO mess is so horrible that even the slow-moving US government bureaucracy seems compelled to do something. Other countries will catch on too. If there is no serious effort to self-regulate and clean up the ICO "industry" then it will end up permanently marginalized, and for a good reason.
Re US residents - that would imply KYC, which most ICOs still don't do.
I haven´t seen many ICOs without KYC in the last month. In fact, that would lead me to think they may be a scam.
I think that the scams are dealing damage to the system, you have a point on that definitely. But think of it as something that can actually bring a good change, that is, rather than becoming marginal, legal stability and regulation may actually bring in institutional investors that cannot risk their client´s money on an unregulated market, but may happily do so given at a legal framework where they can play with know rules.
For an ICO to comply with the regulations they would have to jump through pretty much the same hoops as any other business seeking funding (via bank loans, venture capital, crowdfunding, etc), which then raises the question - what's the point of an ICO? Right now many are simply saying "no US residents" because that's easier, even though there is a fairly well-defined crowdfunding regulation in the US.
I took a look at a few ICOs on icowatchlist.com and they don't seem to ask for any personal info during registration although some may ask to check a box saying "not a US person". Not quite KYC. I didn't go through with any registrations, maybe they ask for more details later. But they do look like scams, that's true. That whole site looks fishy.
I think that the advantages of ICOs are not related to jumping over regulations, but mainly
a) Immediate liquidity for the investment, as the tokens jump into secondary markets within days or weeks. Shares rarely do, you may be stuck with your investment for years.
b) No loss of voting or property for the team, as tokens do not represent shares nor voting rights.
These two would remain even if rules make it harder to setup.
