Rather, what's happening here is that operators of ICOs would like to exempt themselves from the disclosure rules that apply to all other publicly traded companies. They don't want to register with the SEC. They don't want to spend $5k-$10k a quarter on publishing their financials (those financials would probably be on the cheaper end of the scale, since they'll be disclosing basically no meaningful revenue).
Congress and the SEC went out of its way to make streamlined public trading for new enterprises possible with the JOBS act and Title IV. Over a billion dollars of new issuances have apparently happened under Title IV's "mini-IPO" rules, which exclude the most financially onerous costs of IPO for issuances under $50MM (that is: for virtually all ICO-scale raises).
Tech startups haven't used Title IV because, by and large, they can get better deals from venture capitalists. That's not a conspiracy; it's simple statistical selection. The best companies have access to the most reliable capital. The flip side of that coin (no pun intended) is adverse selection, which is what you have when a trivial restaurant review application tries to raise $15MM on a new cryptocurrency dedicated to funding restaurant reviews.
ICO enthusiasts want to paint this as retail investors being excluded from "10000%" gains. They're betraying themselves right there, by arguing with a straight face that there are 10000% gains to realistically be had by retail investors. Really, what they're making is a special-pleading argument: the companies they back don't have their shit together enough to raise large amounts any other way, and they sure would like to be exempted from the rules that apply to everyone else.