No, an "ICO" is not a legal term. Filecoin, however, is one of the few folks that tried to comply with US law. They limited their sale to accredited investors a

No, an "ICO" is not a legal term. Filecoin, however, is one of the few folks that tried to comply with US law. They limited their sale to accredited investors and user a new legal document referred to as a SAFT (Simple Agreement for Future Token), analogous to the SAFE documents popular in startup land. Most ICOs are unregistered securities offering that are violating US law by going public without an effective registration statement in place with the SEC, or an exemption therefrom. Some ICOs may be legal to the extent they are not 'securities', I.e. the argument that you are buying a useful network token, not a security. In my opinion, this argument is BS for the majority of ICOs.