RE: Community Standards for ICOs: Do's and Don'ts
A few is 3! You have broken the "law of few" by 6. ;) It's all inchoate so no list can cover every scenario.
Yes. This is based on today's environment and the externalites to the space of an uncapped sale.
Sort of. Depending on the mechanism, it's "fair," but perhaps not advisable. The sheer dollars at risk are a material issue more than the valuation imo.
The team should determine need and scope. If they can't, they are probably not a good team. Refer to "raise money in tranches," a superior alternative to "raise all the money we can and now."
Distribution is important but can be solved by other means. No crowdsale will be perfect.
I am unclear on what this means. But at least partipcants ex ante know the valuation they get in the Gnosis scenario.
No, They only get rich in the future if they do well. It's conditional, not guaranteed, and it's aligned with the outcomes of their investors. This is why payouts in the future, vesting, not taking a big payday in the beginning, are important -- they align incentives appropriately. In the real world, I don't get paid my lifetime potential earnings up front in a lump sum. If I did, I would probably apply myself at work differently.
This is an issue for all FOSS and all projects in this space for the most part. One can argue that the more $ raised, the greater incentive for a copycat before there are non-monetary barriers. This is distribution issue and a delivering a working product/ecosystem, not a money issue imo.
Potentially no, potentially yes. This is why character matters in leadership. You need people who will do what's right for all stakeholders and balance the project's financing needs with investor outcomes. If AAPL needs to raise $5bn and it makes sense, that new supply of AAPL stock won't negatively affect the extant stock's value. Same goes goes Melonport or Dfinity's next rounds.
SEC has been clear as it doesn't matter how you want to lawyer it, ICO and token promoters have responsibilities to those to whom they sell tokens. I am not interested in securities law or lawyering Howey test, that will be done for us in the future. There is a clear expectation that if you have a project and you raise money, you are expected to do right by your investors (or donators or token holders). It's not a strictly legal standard (yet), but it's a very prudent ethical standard. Again, each project gets to choose for themselves. This is a standard the community holds projects to as determined by me.