Went to the ICO 2.0 conference in Santa Monica this Friday. It was so packed with attorneys and VCs. It appeared to me that Blockchain has become a *traditional industry, and all that a hacker could say was "I don't want to go to jail"–you have to consult an expensive lawyer before you can do anything in the States.
The SEC is thinking that all tokens are security tokens. (Which to me, is not 100% correct, at least they haven't read Steem's whitepaper. )
VCs were laughing at blockchain entrepreneurs. "You have 40 advisors, that's a joke!" "Cash is king! Ask your advisor to put some money[fiat] in your company."
I have to admit that there is no way a young startup can become successful without guidance from the investors and mentors. Especially when you have a lot of money/tokens and you don't know what to do with it, there's nothing preventing your partners or early investors from running away. The coins are decentralized and publicly distributed, but the company behind it is private owned and has little inventive to complete what they have promised the audience once the money is in their pocket.
There are already so many ICO scams. And since all tokens are security (and utility tokens are meaningless). VCs suggested that we ban the term ICO, instead we should call it STO–regulated Security Token Offering. You just legally offer the securities of your company to the public. Which is like Crowdfunding security offering + Smart Contract (am i right?).
https://www.sec.gov/oiea/investor-alerts-and-bulletins/ib_safes
So yeah, over all ICO 2.0 was a good experience, talked to a bunch of talented young people.
Btw, the KODAKCoin team rocked! One of the best presentations I've ever seen. I will probably go to war with this guy, but he is not raising an army, he is raising $83M–which is a lot of money, they can probably hire an outsourcing team in Asia and get it done much cheaper. (Just my 2 cents, i mean 2 coins)
