There are many similarities to what happened when the iron curtain was removed in the late eighties and this current effective (self-proclaimed) lift of the ban on startup investments for the general public.

Poor Product Quality Compensated by Abnormal Demand

In the Communist bloc territories in 1989–1992, after decades of the severe shortage of basic goods, consumers were happy to buy and drink technical-purpose alcohol produced in the West. In the ICO environment, many investment products are consumable, but most are inferior. And the abnormal demand we see is the cause of most discussions including this one.

Irresponsible Business and Deliberate Exploitation of Regulation Vacuum

Back then, many roguish businessmen from prosperous parts of the world were selling trains of expired food, low-quality electronics, and counterfeit “branded” clothes to miserable ex-communists. They were not breaking the word of law, but they certainly realized the wrongdoing by the standards of their home countries. The same is true for many active multi-project supporters and ICO entrepreneurs now. Let me note here that the history of the nineties should have taught those ready to compromise themselves that the backfire is quite probable and painful. It should be expected from the side of wild consumers in the first place. When properly applied, the law stands in between the two parties and protects both buyers and sellers from each other, not one way only.

No Professional Elite at Play

In the early years of post-communist transformation, global trade was represented in Eastern Europe and Russia by sleek rascals with a questionable reputation at home in the West. Now, the ICO landscape lacks prominent and reputable people from the incumbent professional investment community as well. Moreover, the more third-rate, ex-Wall-Streeters you see on a project’s team page, the more red flags you notice elsewhere on that ICO due diligence list. Blatant scams targeted to low-end idiots have someone (or a ghost of someone) with a London City past as a must.

Maintenance of Morality — A Job for a Few Selfless Heroes

Now and then, exactly the opposite can be said about people standing on nonprofit, scientific and humanitarian grounds. Swarms of various religion and meditation “gurus” aside, it was people who arranged scientific collaboration who allowed many good citizens living in post-communist ruins to not totally lose faith in humankind. Now in crypto-space, only figures like Andreas Antonopoulos inspire unconditional respect. Of course, ICOs are only a subset of the broader crypto/blockchain movement, but the noise it produces hardly allows outside observers to hear anything else today.

Local (Inner Circle) Celebrities are Mostly Dangerous Clowns

Those who satisfied the demand on the post-communist territories locally distributed inferior goods to their compatriots (consumed it as well, by the way), wore clownish but locally differentiating business suits, enjoyed life, and killed each other on a daily basis. Today, by normal [old] standards there are no gentlemen in the ICO space either.

Disbalance in Supply Distribution by the Nation States

The structure of trade back then did not correspond with normal global stats. Business communities of few nations — seemingly irrelevant to a particular industry segment — took the lead and supplied at disproportional volumes. Today, we can see many ICOs originated in Russia. For example, during the pre-ICO-boom years not many blockchain innovations were born there.