@cryptovestor Do you foresee tokens skipping the ICO phase and launching their tokens without raising capital?
In my perspective, this could be a possibility if regulations become too stringent for ICOs and if everyday people are not able to invest in projects.
If tokens withhold raising capital upfront and provide an efficient product with a use case, then the market will work its magic and boost token prices up over time. In the short run, they operate at a major loss, but in the long run they gain by leveraging a locked up amount of tokens reserved for the team and future investments. In my opinion, I believe the community would be ok with the token team selling their reserve stock of coins to earn some fiat for their hardwork. However, the team selling their tokens may have a slight negative effect on market prices since more tokens are in circulation afterwards.
The only example I can think of right now is the Earnable token where users get paid in ERN token for completing certain tasks which have different dollar amounts to them. Earn currently pays users in BTC to complete tasks but they're launching their own token soon to replace BTC under their service.
You can learn more about them on earn.com by reading their white paper.
Although Earn is taking a very different approach to how their tokens operate, I see skipping the ICO phase as a viable option if regulation comes down too hard.
Furthermore, if cryptocurrencies are truly supposed to be decentralized and for the average Joe, we could see this happen.
Just my thoughts, what do you think?