All discussion of ICOs suffer from a common misunderstanding of the word 'risk'. "People should be allowed to invest in high-risk/high-reward opportunities" th

All discussion of ICOs suffer from a common misunderstanding of the word 'risk'. "People should be allowed to invest in high-risk/high-reward opportunities" the crypto community will say. But that sentence involves a sleight of hand: Financial markets are made to manage and quantify "risk", yes. However, the risks of financial markets are almost exclusively those of future events unknown (and mostly unknowable): Will people like this movie (once it's made)? How much oil is in this or that field? Is it possible to deliver pet food over ethernet? ICOs' "risk" is about facts that are currently known by some people, with those people being the ones selling you their tokens: Will they actually build a product or abscond with the $500 million they collected in the ICO? Is a has-been boxer a good investment advisor? Does this company's CTO, one "Loyd Techmanski, PhD" actually exist?