Enhancing Disruption

Abstract

Abstract This chapter provides an analysis of initial coin offerings, their development in the market, and their role in shaping the development of the cryptoeconomy. It identifies the initial ICO ‘structural’ pattern and its subsequent evolutions. It then characterizes ICOs in three major jurisdictions—the United States, Europe, and Switzerland. Furthermore, this chapter considers specific unsolved issues as they emerged in the markets and legal systems. In doing so, it focuses on the lack of a definitive approach for regulating ICOs, as well as on specific promises that ICOs breached, in particular with respect to financial inclusion, disintermediation, and infrastructural transformations. Finally, this chapter identifies the main consequences brought by ICOs, with an emphasis on capital market structures and digital securities, which triggered multiple transformations at multiple levels, including corporate governance, development of digital assets, and non-fungible tokens.