The head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Jay Clayton, has said several times — most recently on Monday — that many coins should be categorized as securities and be registered with the authorities, which almost no projects have done. The agency has recently cracked down on a number of projects that aren’t legally compliant.

Indiegogo will help coin offerings follow the law by registering them as securities in most cases. This approach puts many restrictions on investors and on projects.

Small investors will be allowed to invest about $10,000 in most projects, and companies will be able to raise no more than $1 million from these investors, because of restrictions put in place by the 2012 JOBS Act. That is a tiny amount compared with the tens of millions of dollars that many coin offerings have raised this year.

Projects going through Indiegogo will be able to raise more money from sophisticated investors. But these investors will also face limitations, such as lockup periods, before they begin selling their tokens to others.

These restrictions could make the new service unattractive. Most coin offerings have been able to garner unlimited amounts of money from any investor; the biggest have raised over $200 million. And at least so far, regulators have cracked down on few of them.

Several law firms have already been working on creating legally compliant methods of initial coin offerings. Indiegogo is working with one of those firms, Cooley.