So, lets say you've developed a new altcoin and you're going to do an ICO. How does escrow protect coin purchasers? I mean, the dev team is eventually going to get access to the BTC at the end of the crowdsale, at which point they could just steal it all.
You call it "steal", but it's just what an ICO (or IPO in general) is meant to do: raise money for the old owners/creators. Don't make the mistake thinking they do it for
you.
What if the owners/creators/developers take none of the proceeds and its all used to further the altcoin in ways that don't involve paying salaries, etc?