Hedge funds aren't the only people "ICO flipping". I know countless retail investors in the space that have made an absolute killing with it.
I also disagree with the sentiment from people that if you an invest in an ICO, you are somehow responsible to "not sell" or HODL. In my mind, the market is the market. If people want to sell, great. If people want to buy, great. But when people complain about sellers, it's silly.
Agreed, the difference is that most retail investors don't get that 30% discounted price...
Some do, but the vast majority don't..
I think with increased regulation, future ICO's are going to be limited to Accredited Investors and it's basically just going to be the reincarnation of the current VC world on the blockchain. (which would suck)
That would indeed suck pretty horribly, though it's plausible there won't be universal agreement from all the major hotspots, ex., Russia might be incentivized to keep the "wild west" status going, which would benefit platforms like Waves.
Hi Cryptobobby& Jrcornel,
I think the original article that inspired this discussion was on Bloomberg, for those people, who might be interested in the details.
But coming back to the cryptobobby argument that retail investors also make money flipping tokens on ICO price pop I would like to point out that w/o a discount they actually assume the risk of the loss, unlike Hedgies w 30% discount. 30% discount not only serves as a trading cushion, but also means that they stand to gain 43%, along with some other tricks, way more than that if price is at par! That's imho the main difference.
As to OP's question on SMT's I think we would see more of HF financial wizardy over here, as Steemit being a media platform, naturally lends it self to self-promotion abuse...