Bitcoin Forum

Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman Shares Comments On ICO Investors Being Manipulated

The cryptocurrency industry brings in billions of dollars of revenue each year, which seems to come more from retail investors than anyone else. Most platforms introduce themselves to the community with an ICO or a pre-ICO, giving a chance for consumers to get a discounted rate on the tokens before they reach full value. However, the CEO of NASDAQ doesn’t see things that way.

At the Future of Fintech conference, which recently took place in New York, the CEO said,


The CEO refers to the investors as victims of these platforms, as they have limited access to ongoing information about the way they will function.

The SEC requires that cryptocurrency companies release the same information that financial institutions provide in IPOs, but the crypto industry isn’t regulated at all. CEO Adena Friedman also noted at the conference that none of the transparency that banks offer, which makes her nervous that the they are only raising capital through the ICO.

During an ICO, the crypto exchange puts up their tokens for sale, similar to the way that a crowdfunding campaign works. However, instead of earning rights to certain stakes in the company, they will receive “utility tokens,” granting them access to the platform. Though they are sometimes supported by physical assets as incentive, they usually don’t offer anything at all.

For instance, less than a month ago, Block.one was started up in the Cayman Islands, raising $4 billion in their ICO as the biggest offering this year. All of these funds were raised before the platform was even launched.

Recently, the SEC begun to put more pressure and restrictions on ICOs. Some have received warnings, while others have been shut down entirely. So far, the SEC Chairman hasn’t found an ICO that isn’t essentially a securities offering. In an interview with CNBC, he noted that the NASDAQ may even consider a move to digital currency as the industry matures and eliminates the common problems in it.

In April, NASDAQ established a partnership with an exchange by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss called Gemini. With this deal, Gemini will be able to use the surveillance technology that NASDAQ owns. In a statement about the partnership, the CEO said,


As far as cryptocurrency goes, the CEO is still on the fence.


John

Crypto space are full of scam icos and even coin that don't do ICO that why if you want to invest study the particular ICO or coin very well

ICO is pure scam it doesn't have to be sugar coated to be true or false it is completely clear to everyone that they are all scams. people don't want to see it sometimes though so they put their heads in the sand and pretend everything is fine but it is not.
when there is no company and no product and no development whatsoever that means they are asking for money donations while returning nothing. you sometimes get profit of course but you also gain profit from pump and dumps that doesn't make them legal.

I really doubt about the idea of crypto space. I have to do more research on it.

As far as i know some time it occurs. But manipulating is not a good option for making profit. Many investors are affected for this manipulating. So we hope in near future it will decrease.

This was a very helpful post. These days the no. of these scammy incidence are getting higher. Steps must be taken to prevent this kind of incidence from happening.

I think this CEO statement is the precaution as to all investors, they will likely to distant themselves to unregulated crowd-funding. This is the safest move they can make. But that doesn't mean they will avoid cryptocurrency, instead they are more careful in dealing laws.

As for the upcoming month (July) , Nasdaq will likely to have a move regarding entering cryptocurrency space. We can see it coming.

Most of these people are angry because they did not see this coming and now they are out of the game. Let´s do business now.

Scam is everywhere. If we think about the stock exchange then we will find that it is not free from scam also. So we cannot tell anything bad just based on this issue. Moreover this is a personal comment and everyone has right to make comment. But we need not to react without understanding the problem.

It is not new and we all know that most of the ICOs are scam. So one should  be very careful while dealing with a ICO. And Adena is right that ICO manipulates the investors. They actually do it.