I have no issue with ICOs in theory. In practice I don't believe anonymous coin ICOs can ever be done in a manner that avoids the appearance of potential manipulation (insiders buying the ICO, creating a false appearance of high investor demand, getting the purchase money back, and also getting some non-transparent share of the coins). In traditional finance, and possibly a tiny number of above-board coin ICOs, there is transparency as to the identity of the investors and disclosure of ownership on later rounds (of course there are exceptions and frauds), which prevents, or at least discourages, this type of self-dealing.

I'd rather see an actual premine at least honestly disclosed as such. I might not buy into such a coin, but I won't call it fraudulent at least, as I would and do various deceptive and/or fraudulent (or fraud-prone) schemes such as hidden premines and most or all altcoin ICOs in practice.


You are still assuming that the failure is a cryptographic assumption and not an implementation flaw (cryptographic or otherwise). In the latter case the greater transparency of aggregate coin flows on the blockchain will prevent some failures from being undetectable.