Many types of ICOs should not be considered securities. According to Paul Atkins, the head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), such offerings fall outside the commission's jurisdiction and are under the purview of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
The statement immediately changed the tone of the discussion in the market and opened the way for the return of ICOs in the USA. We explain what is happening in the market and whether to expect a new wave of initial token offerings frenzy.
What is an ICO and how to conduct it: all about the initial coin offering
The SEC's position on ICOs
Paul Atkins believes that the token market economy consists of four categories. Three of them — network tokens, digital collectible assets, and digital instruments — are not securities. If a token belongs to one of these groups, then the sale of such an asset within an ICO does not fall under securities legislation.
The SEC intends to focus only on tokenized securities. Other ICOs formally fall under the jurisdiction of the CFTC. For an industry that has lived under the pressure of regulatory lawsuits for many years, this is a serious shift.
Chinese journalist and analyst Colin Wu noted that the new structure of power distribution creates conditions for the reboot of the ICO market in a modified and less conflictual form.
The phenomenon of ICOs
ICO — Initial Coin Offering, the initial coin offering. The project issues a token and sells it to investors to raise funding. It is based on a simple threshold system: soft cap and hard cap. Soft cap — the minimum amount of investments that must be collected for the project to be considered successful. Hard cap — the maximum amount, after reaching which sales stop.
Projects also set the token price, distribution rules, and participation conditions. Then a sale is conducted, after which the team publishes a report on the results. This format has become the crypto equivalent of an early public offering, but with far fewer formal requirements.
Ethereum has long remained the main platform for launching ICOs. Waves and Stellar were used to a lesser extent. Many teams conducted placements through their own smart contracts or platforms like Binance Launchpad.
The boom of 2017
The peak of ICOs occurred in 2017. The rise in prices of digital assets created high demand for new tokens, and the format allowed startups to quickly attract capital. During this period, record placements appeared: EOS raised about $4,197,956,135, TON — $1,700,000,000.
The USA has become the leader in the number of campaigns: 717 placements and about $7.3 billion in investments. The scale can be explained by a combination of high market activity, accessibility of technologies, and the absence of strict regulation at the early stage.
What is happening now in the ICO market
The market for initial token placements, contrary to critics' opinions, is alive. It is not as active as in 2017, but continues to exist.
According to foundico, the peak of ICO activity in 2025 was in July.
According to calculations by the foundico team, the USA remains a leader in the ICO market. At the same time, the most popular platform for conducting initial token offerings, as in the distant 2017, remains Ethereum.
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