In a recent short interview with CNBC, Bruce Aust, Vice Chairman of Nasdaq, said that the stock exchange is still the best place for the companies to raise money as the ICO market is “very young”.
Aust said: “We are a regulated market, I think that's the difference between us and an ICO. And we'll see at some point those markets become regulated and that will change everything.”
He added: "It's very young and early stage and Nasdaq has always been at the forefront of helping companies raise capital, whether it be in the Nasdaq private market or through the Nasdaq public markets. So we believe that we are the market for companies to raise capital."
According to Coindesk’s ICO tracker, Blockchain firms have to date raised more than $3.5 billion through ICOs. But the boom happened only in the Q2 2017 - in 2016, just about $300 million was raised.
With this mammoth advancement in the ICO market, it has also attracted a lot of criticism. Recently Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales branded ICO an “absolute scam” and a few days later Jordan Belfort, the real-life “Wolf of Wall Street”, said these ICOs are the “biggest scam ever”.
The ICO market is still not regulated, and with a huge pump of money, it is also attracting the attention of the authorities. In October, the governments of China and South Korea issued a blanket ban on ICOs. Even countries like Japan and Singapore, where the authorities very much appreciate Bitcoin and blockchain technology, have issued warnings against ICOs.
