Chris, STOs may be the buzzword for 2019, and your description of their "limitations" is quite apt. However, Hedera Hashgraph did their crowdsale with an SAFT in August 2018. Perhaps this model would be more appropriate for selling stake in a network as opposed to selling stake in an organization. Remember, Hedera ran towards regulators because of the problems with ICOs. This gives future projects options in the toolbox. Dev teams should always use the right tool for the job, right?
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I thought the same thing, when I saw the SAFT come out and noticed a distinct split in the tokens out there - ones with an eye towards attaining capital and one with an eye towards attaining investors.
The ones focused on capital would open up, let investors come in, then have few to zero restrictions for when coins could be dumped, not implement any KYC, ignore future regulatory requirements and not use a SAFT or similar instrument for clarifying investment requirements.
Those with an eye towards attaining investors, particularly long term ones, did the opposite. They used SAFTs, used firms to implement KYC, put into place restrictions for token holding and selling requirements early investors couldn’t buy at a premium and then dump on the market when the coin showed up on an exchange.
These, to me, made a mark of a mature, forward-thinking and non-scammy feel.
Coinlist and Filecoin paved the way for this in 2017 by embracing regulation awareness, investor documentation and taking all this seriously.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/19/filecoin-to-run-first-coinlist-based-ico.html
And then the hit jobs started. Google “SAFT” and you’ll see article after article about how horrible it is, SEC throws shade on It, why would anyone ever choose it, and how it’s just a bad idea.
I wonder if that whole run of SAFTness was a coordinated attack just to get people to stop investing, right during the whole downturn.
That’s one of my theories, anyway.