You think all "ICOs" are manipulation.
I am confident they are ILLEGAL if publicly marketed to USA investors.
Maybe that's why it's important to know that the managers of these are not in the US, and in this case, neither is the company.
However, regardless of either of our ideas, if they were truly as "illegal" as you state (out of context), then there would be action being taken, and I don't see that going on. (not to say that there are not scams, and intentional fraud, etc - a small %, like in every industry)
Also: citation? If it's illegal, it has a link stating so clearly. Of course, you've employed circular reasoning by using the term "investment", and
begged the question. Crytpocurrency is neither a currency, nor an investment in the eyes of the law.
Greg @ Synereo is avoiding explaining all the specification and technology to us in terms we can understand. No excuses you can make for that which are valid. He is selling AMPs and not giving us information we can verify. That is an illegal prospectus. If Synereo didn't sell AMPs to the public, Greg et al would have no obligation to explain the technology in detail to us in terms we can understand and verify.
Edit: it is rather useless if I go expend my scarce time to become an expert in process calculi so that I could find game theory flaws in Synereo's process calculi approach to their hyped Attention Model feature. Because it would still be an asymmetric information market for the investors, as then they would be required to trust either my conclusions or Greg's (Synereo's). The only solution is for Greg to do proper disclosure by explaining the technology in terms that all AMP investors can understand. They have the time to produce a very exquisite website and consume hours every week on video Hangouts that do hyped handwaving on technical details, then they should also have enough time to explain the technology in sufficient detail that we can analyze without requiring us to become one of the few process calculi researchers on earth.
Greg never avoids explaining. In fact, I've never heard him
not add an invitation for more explanation if needed, to what he says in hangouts. There are other class-like videos with more in depth info as well. Analogies are a great tool to broaden understanding, and taking the workings of something like BitTorrent can give you an idea of how content distribution works on a decentralized basis.
Ask an informed question, and you'll get an informed answer. Ask a vague question that expresses your lack of mental investment in a subject, and you'll likely be directed to some reading material. Some amount of personal responsibility needs to be taken.
Investors regularly rely on the opinions of experts, including 2nd or 3rd opinions by independent parties.
Otherwise, we'd have no inventions like smart phones or computers, and we'd never had landed on the moon or mapped DNA, simply because "everyone could not understand it", so no funding. Innovation and breakthroughs are by nature, beyond the reach of complete understanding by those not intimately familiar with the components already.