It especially irks me to see actually interesting and innovative projects like Iota's tangle fall victim to this IPO mess.
I fail to see why IPO is not a honest way to get initial funding? If you have a good white paper and all you need is money to implement it, IPO is probably the most honest way: win-win situation for both company making it and for early investors, if developers do the ob well. I don't see it being scammy by default.