Crypto-Anarchism is so 2013 — Filecoin will be the first crypto-token sale to really follow US securities law

Juan Benet at Protocol Labs always thought that regulators would come for the initial coin offering market.

His company has built a bunch of products for the distributed web.

It built the Interplanetary File System, to locate content on the web by its data rather than its location.

It is building Filecoin, a data storage system that uses IPFS to work more efficiently.

Finally, it launched Coinlist, a platform for launching new coins that respects American securities law.

It's fashionable in crypto-land to take the anarchist approach, ignore the law and deride regulators for living in the past. The truth is, though, that American securities law is grounded in a flexible framework that's always up to date. It's based on principles, not forms.

That's why Filecoin is launching with what it's called a "Simple Agreement for Future Tokens." The Filecoin tokens themselves won't be available until the actual Filecoin system is up and running.

The Observer spoke to Benet about his approach, the inevitability of regulation and the particulars of his companies approach to its closely watched ICO, going live on Monday.