Are Big Crypto Token Sales Really Over? At Republic Event, Many Think So

While everyone agrees that 2017 was the raucous year with ICOs garnering huge sums of money based on unrealistic expectations, 2018 topped the prior year's numbers by April.

"By 'main sale,' I mean the public ICO in the fashion we saw late last year," Jed Halfon of Republic said as he introduced the panel participants.

Caroline Hofmann, Republic's chief operating officer, doesn't think the main sale is over, per se, but instead thinks entrepreneurs and companies are being "More cautious and thoughtful."

Blockstack already did this with its ICO and there was also discussion on stage about ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin's Decentralized Autonomous ICO model, which would allow investors more of a say in how the money raised is used.

Georgia Quinn of CoinList floated the idea that many companies that ICO'ed should have raised money in a more traditional way.

Whatever may happen, nearly everyone at the event agreed that the entrepreneurs behind crypto projects, especially ones using the ICO method, need to be clearer about what they're about and what they plan on doing with any money raised.

When companies release a token long before anyone can actually use it on the platform, the token price often drops at some point below even its ICO or private sale price.

Geoffrey Arone, a partner at Arrington XRP Capital, said on stage that he's taken meetings with very good companies, companies he believed could deliver, and still, he said, "I've turned them away when, with fair certainty, I can get this cheaper after it ICOs.".

"I think the culture over there makes it more attractive for people to want to invest."

"The most interesting teams are raising less than $10 million," Alfred said, pointing to projects like FOAM and Livepeer, which have progressed quickly on relatively small ICO raises.