It is completely over hyped, but imo it is promising bc:
smart contracts are powerful financial instruments, and they basically simplifying the whole financial processes. Like investing even in only remotely useful ideas.
As a result, ICOs based on basically options modelled as smart contracts are allowing the allocation of capital much more efficiently. An example is that blockchain is thriving in Africa. Bc in Africa the financial industry is not so well developed like in Europe, Japan or America.
ICOs are new, and hyped and hot, and as always a lot of fantasy is going into this still new technology.
I mean so far more than $2bn was invested in ICOs. That is a huge number.
We will see what will survive.
I totally agree that the concept itself is probably valid and valuable.
My doubts are related to the ability of the tech to live up to the promise. Critics say that the code of these smart contracts is very vulnerable to hacking. And that is when talking about the serious ones who actually have tech, a lot of ICO's seem to be based on pure smoke and mirrors. A great talk about the security issues is from John McAfee recently about inherent security issues:
The scary bit also as a casual onlooker is his remarks on loosing several thousands of dollars simply due to user error on his part (John McAfee is probably one of the most techsavvy users around) The potential to lose your money seems to be larger at various stages. Especially interesting his remarks about phone based wallets.
may be it is an odd comparison, but the first wifi routers you could buy had no encryption, you could easily hack your neighbour and capture his data.
websites had no ssl (even until 3-4 years ago).
adopting early is always riskier and less convenient.
it's part of the experience:-)