"they are 10x better" -- Not really. For example, if you want to raise capital but you don't want to spend a million on lawyer fees in the US, move your operation to the Caimen islands, do an ICO, and you can raise 100+ mil today. 5 years from now, you could possibly raise a billion. Worldwide capital investment is not something traditional systems can achieve, and traditional systems exclude 99% of humanity.
Then I would also say, the decentralized trust mechanism is important because this elevated level of trust above and beyond traditional systems creates trust outside of 17th century style governments. And this manner of trust is more convenient in many ways than the old world method. For example, to achieve an end, you may have to resolve it in court which can be expensive... but a blockchain contract solves these issues without cost due to a formulaic outcome of the software on the distributed system. To the degree a decentralized contract works, it changes everything in those areas it will work. The primary interesting way this works is perhaps decentralized organizations / corporations.
I agree with the author to a limited extent. For now, it's safer and cheaper to use US dollars in the US. Yet there are already plenty of situations worldwide where it's safer and cheaper to use digital currency. This same concept applies to every area blockchain can penetrate. When it moves into an area, it will compete and beat many traditional systems around the world. It may not beat every system in every case, but it will beat many of them.
I agree about the junk ICO's out there. Most of them are useless, and just a way to get people to part with money.
The author provides a good framework to be critical of crypto assets. I agree with many of the author's points. You also make good counter-points.
Do you think ICOs continue to be the boom that we've been seeing? If and when a platform like EOS takes off, it's not clear to me what sort of function an ICO will really have. I guess there's just so much froth in the ICO market that 98% of what I'm looking at doesn't seem like viable tokens (EOS being one of the only exceptions).
ICO market needs to launch real projects, not junk scam. To the degree it just keeps hammering the scam projects, is the degree ICO's will be unpopular for a time. The main issue is that for some reason when they hit exchanges, people bid them up so there is almost no downside to ICO flipping lately. I would certainly not own most ICO's long-term. .... This all said, the method of operation for an ICO is revolutionary and when people figure out how to launch legit projects, and have systems for weeding out the scams (3rd party rating agencies), ICO's will be the best method to raise global capital.
100%