The Beginning of the End of the ICO free-for-all Party?

A number of events that have occured over the past 4 weeks and most recently over the weekend are beginning to show signs that the free-for-all ICO party may be about to come to an end…

Four weeks ago the SEC announced it had investigated the DAO Crowdsale from July 2016 and had concluded it was a security. Whilst it was not definitive guidance it represented a “shot across the bows” that the whole space was being investigated… This resulted in:

• the MAS (Singapoean regulators) putting out a similar statement in regards certain styles of ICOs
• Exchanges reacting negatively — Bitfinex not accepting new US customers, existing US customers being given 90 days notice that they would not be able to trade, Poloniex announcing they were re-assessing all tokens on their exchange to ascertain if they were indeed as security with de-listing the likely consequence and Shapeshift announcing they were getting their lawyers to re-assess the tokens they were exchanging to and would consider removing those that appeared to be a security

Now whilst this may just appear to be “one-off’s”, that some members of the cryptocommunity are pro-actively adopting a changing attitude towards tokens and ICO’s, when this is further added to activities in China, this is, I believe, marking the beginning of a major seismic shift in the ICO landscape.

Last week, Coin Telegraph reported the PBOC (The Chinese central bank) was considering suspending all ICOs . This has had ramifications over the weekend. The Box mining youtube channel that specialises in the Chinese cryptocurrency markets reported over the weekend :

• The Bikan blockchain conference in Bejiing due to be held on September 10 (which we were finalising arrangements to attend) has been postponed citing “safety issues”. (This is the second conference to be abruptly cancelled following the DACA conference cancellation on September 2 and the Chinese police allegedly recently attending the Finwise Blockchain conference in an attempt to close it down.)
• Major Chinese ICO platform ICOage voluntarily suspending its ICO activity — where current ICOs are suspended immediately and upcoming ICOs postponed
• Another significant Chinese ICO info has temporarily ceased its activites

As the owner of the Boxmining chanel himself says in China — “rumours are often a precursor to action”

This does seem to point to organisations wanting to do the right thing and being seen to do the right thing, and protecting their interests from regulatory interference.

As for our Token Sale, right from the get-go six months ago, we designed it to follow best practice standards and to establish our token as an intrinsic part of our platform and, for example, voluntarily instigated an AML/KYC (anti-money laundering and Know Your customer processes). We are watching the whole space very carefully — the party may well be coming to an end for many — but for us, it is business as usual.