When examining "retail" investment issues, the regulators must confront the trade-off between (i) increasing the choices available to retail investors and (ii) limiting the risks that retail investors are permitted to accept (without the selling firm being at risk for a suitability violation). There is no easy answer.

Though his views were often not made into law, Commissioner Jackson consistently distinguished himself by always supporting his positions with solid reasoning. Open to engagement and to the back-and-forth nature of informed debate, he has been just the kind of person that one would want at the SEC.

Presumably, the bad guys know how to do this anyways, and the issues raised will focus the good guys on the risks.

Why is the SEC merely warning retail investors about IEOs instead of asking them to contact the SEC or a state securities regulator? Here, for example, is a touting IEOs and purporting to distinguish them from initial coin offerings that are securities. The author makes it fairly clear that the exchange through which the IEO is offered is acting as a broker-dealer or underwriter.