Bloomberg: SEC Floats New Framework for Token Fundraising, but ICO Fever Has Faded Since 2018
AI Market Summary
The SEC's proposed exemptions for token fundraising (up to $5m over four years for startups; up to $75m annually for larger projects) marginally reduce regulatory friction and could broaden compliant issuance. However, the story underscores structurally weaker demand versus 2018, with speculative liquidity migrating to perps, prediction markets, and AI equities. Net effect is modest: clearer pathways, but limited near-term re-acceleration in primary token fundraising.
Impact level
● Medium
Affected assets
BTC/USDT+1.05%
AI Insight · BTC/USDTAI Insight
● Neutral
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Huo Xing Finance, citing Bloomberg, reported that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has put forward proposed rules for crypto-asset fundraising in a bid to breathe new life into the ICO playbook. Under the proposal, startups could raise as much as $5 million over four years, while larger projects could raise up to $75 million per year, without going through full SEC registration.
Market conditions, though, look nothing like they did during the last boom. Monthly ICO fundraising hit a peak of $3 billion in January 2018. Today, token trading volumes tied to venture capital have dropped sharply, as speculative money has migrated to perpetual contracts, prediction markets, and AI stocks.
Tom Schmidt, a partner at Dragonfly, summed up the mood: "Better than nothing, but it would have been more useful a few years ago." Pantera Capital partner Cosmo Jiang added that the regulatory landscape has been upside down: "Previously, meme coins were legal while tokens with real utility were illegal—this is the exact opposite of how a capitalist society should function."
Analysts say the timing matters: an ICO in 2026 will not resemble an ICO in 2018, and the days when a whitepaper and a dream could pull in large sums of capital are gone.
