One of the world's greatest boxers of our time invested in an ICO and used social media to promote it. In his Instagram post we can clearly see a suitcase of $100 bills and his comment: "Champion Predictions:
I'm gonna make a $hit t$n of money on August 26th. I’m gonna make a $hit t$n of money on August 2nd on the Stox.com ICO."

The report by The Securities and Exchange Commission issued today stated: "Tokens offered and sold by a 'virtual' organization known as 'The DAO' were securities and therefore subject to the federal securities laws." SEC also pointed out that "U.S. Securities Laws May Apply to Offers, Sales, and Trading of Interests in Virtual Organizations."
The main idea of this report is that ICOs that are offering investments must register with the SEC. However, they also point out that certain exemptions may apply. In some cases, if a token is not a security, but instead has an actual utility, then the ICO (Initial Coin Offering) may not have to register with the SEC since that would not necessarily be considered an "investment" or security. There was no detailed explanation of exactly what would or wouldn't be considered a security, but only commented on The Dao.

Up until now, many legitimate ICOs have been "self-regulating" and doing things such as not allowing U.S. Citizens to be involved if they did believe they were offering a security or investment.

On the one hand, it brings legitimacy to this sphere and decrease amount of fraud being committed. On the other hand, SEC simply applied established case law to the novel technology of an ICO.