With the recent bans, and news of crypto tightening regulations, some coins (mostly those which are modeled as a security) are beginning to move more into an accredited investor/institutional investor-only ICO.
Unless they identify and verify accredited investor status and file the appropriate paperwork in every jurisdiction where those accredited investors reside, then they’re still illegally issued securities, e.g. EOS’ checkbox for “I’m an accredited investor” is not legal issuance. Anyone promoting or trading these (including the owners of the exchanges!) may be incriminating themselves.
Do you guys see it as ICOs/blockchain defeating its own purpose by being open only to individuals with the big bucks, a needed measure, or there is way for us to agree on a middle ground?
Tokens issued under an accredited investor exemption must only be traded to other verified accredited investors. If the issuers/promoters/investors reasonably expect these tokens to be listed on public exchanges then they are probably committing a crime. An attorney pointed this out.
Fundraising via tokens is a giant mess that should be entirely avoided by everyone (at least until the authorities provide some new legal framework which might be many years from now, especially since it will require globalized harmonization of law in order to allow trading across nation-state borders). ICO issued tokens are doomed and will likely become illegal to trade and thus worthless. Expect exchanges to start voluntarily delisting ICO issued tokens once they realize the deep shit they are in. You’re investing in empty bags that have never produced any real world use or than facilitating selling empty bags to greater fools.
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