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My feeling is that the success of ICOs is a side effect of the meteoric rise in value of Bitcoin and Ethereum.

There are many people who have become virtual currency millionaires. At that point anyone would be looking to diversify. Purchasing traditional assets would mean paying taxes on the coins. Purchasing ICOs just diversifies your coin holdings into an even more speculative asset class.

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> Purchasing traditional assets would mean paying taxes on the coins

Purchasing ICOs would be a taxable event.

But one that is currently invisible to tax authorities.

Block chain transactions are not as opaque as you think.

As long as they are not looking that does not matter.

^this. Currently sitting next to someone at work in this situation. 10x'd some money betting on bitcoin, 100x'd the same money betting on Ethereum. Now he's betting on ico's hoping to win again. He's betting, not investing, in the same way that people put 100's of thousands of dollars on boxing matches.

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