Initial Coin offerings: what rights do investors have?
本文综述了首次代币发行（ICO）的文献，并基于37个国家的数据发现，反董事权利和反自我交易指数与国家层面ICO筹资额正相关，但白皮书披露质量和投资者权利普遍较差，约60%的白皮书未披露资金用途或管理团队信息，约80%的ICO未赋予投资者分红或投票权，表明需要监管以保护投资者。
This paper reviews the growing literature on initial coin offerings (ICOs) and provides original evidence of the investor protection on ICOs from 37 countries. We show that the anti-director rights and anti-self-dealing index are positively associated with the country-level raised fund of ICOs after controlling for economic and culture factors. The disclosure quality and investor rights as specified in the Whitepapers are generally poor and they are found to be important to raise more funds in ICOs. We argue that the lack of (self-) discipline poses a threat to investor protections. Around 60% Whitepaper do not disclose information on the use of proceeds or management team. Around 80% ICOs do not entitle investors the rights for dividend or vote. Our findings suggest the needs of regulating ICOs to protect investors.