Should ICOs be regulated as IPOs?

[OliverChassa]

ICOs have become quite popular to bypass rigourous processes put in place by institutions for startups to raise money and thus finance their activity/project.

However, with no consensus on their legal status and the regulation that should apply, many countries and their institutions are advising people to be cautious due to the high volatility and level of risks linked with cryptocurrencies. Shall ICOs be regulated as IPOs and obey existing securities regulations? In order one to make his own opinion about it, here are some of the pros and cons of such a regulation:

-Disadvantages: if money raising fraudulent, no jurisdiction to protect the investors, no equitable ownership, no rights equivalent to being a shareholder, companies have not produced yet any real or tangible results, anonymised transactions

-Advantages: in an ICO, the company may not be subject to direct tax, very little regulatory oversight, firms can raise funds through individuals trading fiat or other virtual currencies, if the money raised does not meet the required amount, the campaign will be written off as a failure and money returned to backers

Companies have raised $180m in ICOs so far in 2017. The question remains if they will still remain so popular whether the regulations will be tightened and whether tokens would be more considered as stocks/shares. Past ICOs should actually be used as a model or a reference to identify good practises and failures and use it to suggest further improvements from a legal point of view. So far, so good.

[moala]

Yes or we can soon be a hot bed for multi-million dollar scams

[timmayeur]

Yes, and more countries are trying to do just that. There always needs to be somesort of oversight and consequences.

[eodchop]

I think that idea of ICO is really a good for the present market.
but the main problem is that a lot of ICOs turn to be a simple scam, so majority of ICO organizers just deceive people

[Gorgeous011235]

To prevent investors from any kind of loss and fraud ICOs must be regulated somehow.
Of course when this will happen..talking about regulation of ICOs..
the margin of profits for investors will drop and the general price of ICOs will rise because of taxes implementation.
So i think that as long as things keep working like they have been till now it's a very good time for investors
but at the same time the risk of loss is very high.

[bullseyetnt]

Its really hard these day's with so many clever people to know if an ICO is a scam or not. Also seems that most coin's when they list on exchange are very close to ICO prices so maybe just wait for it to list and get some.

[CoinSavvy]

The answer to your questions is yes, the ICOs should be regulated somehow at least, not exactly like IPOs, because of the elevating amount of scam ICOs it is required to take precautions and ensure investors' funds to the most possible extent.

[Latrix]

Right now it's not regulated, but diligence checks by individual investors plays apart too. So I suggest investors have to do their diligent checks and research before every ICO they plan to invest in.

[Pab]

ICO's not should be but will be regulated not exactly like a IPO.SEC,China etc are working on ico's regulation
SEC must to regulate ico's becouse of demand from institutional investors like godan&sachs
Main condition will be token utility

[greyeye]

while I do believe "better" information or due diligence is required for any ICO, I doubt its simple to just regulate it.

I mean there is no border or control on Crypto, you can buy BTC and ETH and what not and send to ICO. Regardless of you're from the regulated country or not.

[gomei]

I think the ICO should be regulated to prevent more and more scams, but it should not be in a IPO way since there are many differences between.

[shenjing85]

I think the ICO should be regulated to prevent more and more scams, but it should not be in a IPO way since there are many differences between.

Yes, I agree with you. ICO is more friendly to common investors with no too much money and they should be protected by the regulations.

[G.Seed]

When I read "regulation", I don't understand "less scam", I understand "more taxes".

[elbimbo012]

I think the ICO should be regulated to prevent more and more scams, but it should not be in a IPO way since there are many differences between.

exactly it should be regulated to prevent developer fron creating coins over and over again to be used for scam. the big challenge is how and where should be the regulator considering the scope of crypto currency is world wide then who will be the regulator? that would be a big challenge and the time it will take to pas the said regulation

[xux99]

ICO regulation should be just an option and not become obligatory. The investor has the right to decide wether to invest in a high risk/high reward unregulated ICO or a low risk/low reward regulated one.

[Fredomago]

it should be regulated to assure that investors will be protected and funds will be well taking care to developed such project, with some rules
it will really helps both side if the project is legit for sure the developers won't have any argue or any problem with regulations.

[carlisle1]

Based on those previous replied, it should be regulated in order to minimize the incident of scams so that the funds of investors would be safe and secured but of course we are dealing with this type of investment it will still be our fault to risk our money to those projects which we do not know either regulated or not .

[akmittal]

ICOs should be regulate similar way as IPOs.
As public money is involve with the ICOs similar as IPO and if not regulated there are a lot of chances of scam. ICO are spread world wide so there should be an international platform to regulate the ICOs. Because single country individually can't watch & regulate this matter.

[kandholabhavna]

Many countries are already in the process of regulating ICO's as almost all of them are here to make a quick buck.

[webtricks]

Yes or we can soon be a hot bed for multi-million dollar scams

Agree. The unregulated environment of ICO enabling them to run as arbitrary units. They aren't subjected to anyone. As a result,  in today's scenario 90% ICOs are non-serious projects whose only objective is to collect money from people and then vanish away.
Regulation has become necessity for the safeguards of investors. Hence I would only suggest people to invest in those ICOs, which have proper KYC system.