Within an unclear legal framework, the challenging Initial Coin Offering turned into an increasingly prominent fundraising mechanism for new companies and a great investment opportunity for retail investors, reaching overwhelming numbers all over the world during last years. However, while the global ICO market became ‘too big to ignore’, many cases of undesired behavior and scams occurred, generating some alarm in the participants and attracting the attention of regulators. Along with it, at the end of 2017, the ‘crypto winter’ started. In this context, we have been witnessing an abrupt downtrend of the ICO market from the second half of 2018, where there was no lack of experts who declared the ICO’s death. This paper goes beyond all the frenzy period and analyses the performance of the ICO as a financial vehicle from its origins, as well as the benefits and characteristics of the ICO, which includes addressing the scope of its regulation.