Last summer, ICOs could do no wrong. But by 2018, the acronym had been relegated to the realm of the unmentionables, a place normally reserved for the most offensive cuss words and the name of Harry Potter’s antagonist, Voldemort. In many circles, “ICO” has become a dirty word. In its place has come a range of creative alternatives, each designed to improve on the model and nomenclature of the much derided Initial Coin Offering.
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ICOs Are So Last Year
Whenever a new musical movement emerges – punk; nu-metal; emo – bands lumped into the genre rush to distance themselves from it. Something similar has happened with ICOs: everyone’s in them, but no one wants to admit to being in them. Instead, we have the spectacle of projects dressing their ICO up as a “token generation event” and other euphemisms.
Some of the alternative nomenclature is an attempt to avoid legal repercussions (“You can’t charge us with running an unregistered ICO if we didn’t call it an ICO!”), but more often it’s an attempt to avoid being tarred with the same brush as the scammy ICOs that have ruined the name for everyone. Then there are the crowdsales whose alternative name reflects a genuine desire to provide an alternative means of raising capital in which everyone gets a bite of the cherry. What follows is six alternatives to the tried, tested, and tired ICO.
STO
A Security Token Offering (STO) is a fully regulated ICO which proceeds with the SEC’s blessing. These are categorized into various types including Reg D (open to institutional investors only) and Reg S, which is for STOs being held in a country outside the US. The holy grail for
