Re: Launching ICO based in US. SEC Rules.

In order to sell securities to the public in the USA, including some crypto assets, you either need to register your securities with the sec and issue a prospectus or you can only sell to accredited investors.

I have not looked at overstock or kodak but Id venture to say that since they are large companies they spent the $500k or so to register their securities

And what would be the process and requirements to the company and tokens?

Most of the ICOs try to classify themselves as utility tokens and seek exemption from SEC registration requirements. But SEC recently banned an ICO from Munchees, even though Munchees treated their token (MUN) as utility and not as security.

If your token is really a token (and not disguised as token instead of securities), you are exempt from SEC requirements.

What's the difference between tokens and securities?

It blows my mind that it costs $500K to file Reg D and Reg S. How is that possible? Is that attorney's fees? Or is that the ACTUAL costs of filing - like, collected by the SEC. I can't believe it's the latter. But I've seen that cost bandied about quite a lot, and someone I know who has a lot of experience mentioned it on a call the other day ... yet there was no time on the call for me to ask him. Anyway ... it really seems prohibitively expensive, although given the amounts raised, I suppose in the long term, it's reasonable, relatively speaking.