ICOs are a fascinating idea, and revolutionary as a format of capitalizing early stage projects. They are great for entrepreneurs. But they are dangerous for investors in ways that are not fully known, and out of excitement are ignored. The legal fictions that exist for buying shares of a well defined legal entity within a body of common and statutory law just are not there yet for tokens. But they should be, or negative capital outcomes can distract from the tech innovation they signify.

Also, ICOs, I think, are leading to major concentration of ownership of future technology. If $10 million of USD equivalent Bitcoin and Ethereum flow into a project in half an hour, much of those $10 million earned as capital gains in the last week, there is a cumulative ownership effect for cryptocurrency whales. That may be a good thing. Or it may have its own externalities, like the attention economy today.