Beyond the ICO Part 3: Evolution Versus Revolution

The ICO model will soon be rendered redundant by a series of new token offering models focusing on security, transparency, and regulatory compliance.

In this three-part series, we'll assess the current state of the ICO ecosystem, analyze the regulatory shift making the "Traditional" ICO model untenable, and take a look beyond the ICO at the future of decentralized capital generation.

In our previous Beyond the ICO article, we examined the ICO market and regulatory response to the ongoing issue of ICO fraud.

Regulators are playing a critical role in the creation of a new token offering model that allows innovative startups to access capital in a decentralized manner, but what shape will the future ICO take?

The Future of the ICO. The immunological regulatory response to the threat presented by the traditional ICO model will inevitably result in change, but regulation isn't the only environmental factor shaping the evolution of ICOs.

Community self-regulation will heavily influence the morphology of future ICOs as the crypto market adapts to fraud within the ICO market and eliminates less efficient models in a Darwinian manner.

The ICO model will fracture into separate models that fill different niches within the blockchain ecosystem; security token offerings and DAICOs.

UK-based technology advisory and investment firm GP Bullhound predicts the end of the ICO model as the go-to capital generation method for blockchain entrepreneurs, stating that 2018 will see airdrops become new normal for token distribution.

With venture capital stepping in at a pre-ICO stage, airdrops will function as a preferable option to traditional ICO models in order to maximize network effects.

While the ICO as it exists today may be gone tomorrow, the blockchain brings evolution, not revolution.