I find it unlikely an ICO conviction would help anyone electorally. Only tiny proportion of voters would even understand what happened. It's not like high profile corruption or murder or something everyone gets.

That's not to say they wouldn't do it to advance themselves internal to the justice system, where that kind of conviction would have forward-looking value.

> I find it unlikely an ICO conviction would help anyone electorally. Only tiny proportion of voters would even understand what happened. It's not like high profile corruption or murder or something everyone gets.

It'd be so easy to spin ICOs as a matter of fraud that's taking advantage of uninformed investors, a Ponzi scheme, or any of the other buzzwords that historically work pretty well in convincing voters of criminal financial activity.

Whether or not you actually view ICOs as any of these things is incidental to whether or not an AG with career ambitions would be able use that rhetoric to gain votes.

> It'd be so easy to spin ICOs as a matter of fraud that's taking advantage of uninformed investors, a Ponzi scheme, or any of the other buzzwords that historically work pretty well in convincing voters of criminal financial activity.

Indeed. The fact that ICO's have generally been fraudulent get rich schemes aids greatly in this "spin" of which you speak.

Even worse. ICOs are based on crypto magic money. Crypto means computers. Computers means Silicon Valley, which is the current go-to elite to hate. I can see a way to spin this politically that could resonate with plenty of the US population.

It is the current go-to elite to hate by other elites. Most normal people don't feel strongly about Silicon Valley.

Given the recent deluge of anti-SV (and anti-tech sphere in general) articles in mass media, I'm not sure about that. People do read and share this stuff.

I think the phrase you're looking for is stalking horse.

> I find it unlikely an ICO conviction would help anyone electorally

I've never held elected office. I defer my opinion to those who do. They say ICOs represents a golden trifecta between (a) fraud against moms and pops, (b) complicated financial instruments and (c) Silicon Valley arrogance.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by shutting down? AFAIK, most ICOs are closed off to us citizens already (and for those that are available to us citizens, it requires the investors to be accredited).