This isn’t semantics, token sales are counted for as revenue.
Yes, its too bad that there is a colloquial action called “invest” and a legal term called “investor”
This is obvious when you think about it for a second, but also - lol. ICOs created a capital structure level that's completely outside of the capital structure :)
That’s pretty unprecedented.
They are even more weightless, more fungible, cheaper to produce than both legal and illegal drugs and you can pay people from your illiquid premine and deduct that against your liquid revenue. Primarily because people are willing to be paid in the tokens (unlike other consumer products or even shares), and because they aren't illegal like drugs.
Due to their “property” designation and again non-illicit status, donations to non-profits are extremely flexible too, for greater tax benefits at cost-basis or fair market value.
People should look into making them better instead of looking at what went wrong.
When the consumer market is hot, sell more product.
When the share market is hot, sell more shares.
When the credit market is hot, sell more debt.
Token issuers currently make enough to just stick with the consumer market, but make too little subsequent revenue relative to their primary sale to access the equity and corporate bond market. This can be fixed by a continual stream of token sales for different products, currently the consumers that think they playing arm-chair angel investor dont want to see this industrialized because they think the teams should be married to the “vision” they “invested” in, and liberally call any predictable deviation from that outcome an “exit scam”. But token factories will happen and already exist, and will be taught in Harvard Business School later this decade.
In the token market, this is currently controversial because consumers themselves dont know what they are.
Outside the token market, this is currently controversial because “ICO” “blockchain” are bad words and there also is a general ignorance perpetuated by misrepresented exposure to things going wrong, combined with the same consumer-investor misalignment when those people do “invest” in something. It doesn't really matter, the market can bear what the market can bear.