>>Now the ICO craze has caught attention because of securities fraud, and governments have stepped in. Going a bit off tangent, but I just want to clarify that

>>Now the ICO craze has caught attention because of securities fraud, and governments have stepped in. Going a bit off tangent, but I just want to clarify that the concern is primarily over token sales not meeting securities law requirements relating to registering a security before offering it to the public, and not securities fraud. As it is, several token sales that have engaged in fraudulent practices have been pursued by the SEC and no one takes issue with this. Fraud laws are clearly applicable to all financial interactions, including those involving cryptocurrency, and their enforcement is a public good. The controversy is in applying securities laws to token sales and thus placing the SEC as the centralized gatekeeper with which any party wanting to conduct a smart-contract based token sale needs to register with. Further requirements include meeting disclosure requirements designed for traditional securities which have questionable applicability to a project with no central coordinator that aims to create a protocol utility token that confers no legal claims to an underlying asset.