The ICO Boom
2017
Token sales turned a new fundraising mechanism into a worldwide phenomenon.
Origins
Smart contracts made issuing transferable tokens accessible to many teams. Token sales offered a way to distribute those tokens and raise funds before a product had necessarily reached maturity.
The moment
During 2017, initial coin offerings became a prominent financing model. In July, the SEC published its DAO report, explaining that the economic circumstances of an offering could bring it within securities laws regardless of terminology.
The aftermath
The boom linked experimentation with serious questions about disclosure and investor protection. This record uses 2017 as a period, not a single launch date. The regulatory report documents a turning point; it is not a blanket judgment about every token issued during that year.