For the first time in US history, the SEC has approved a public token offering in which investors will receive tokens instead of shares in the company. Blockchain startup Blockstack launched its $28 million offering under Regulation A+ last week, but whether this will reverse the trend of the declining ICOs remains unanswered. Although the Reg A+ framework has more lenient disclosure obligations than a traditional IPO, it has scared away Nasdaq and the NYSE due to fraud concerns.

Blockstack has a single pending patent application directed to processing a global naming system with blockchains that aims to achieve all three points of Zooko's Triangle: security, human-readability, and decentralization. If granted, this patent would support the startup's goal of creating a scalable platform for dApps.