Hi Cryptobobby& Jrcornel,
I think the original article that inspired this discussion was on Bloomberg, for those people, who might be interested in the details.
But coming back to the cryptobobby argument that retail investors also make money flipping tokens on ICO price pop I would like to point out that w/o a discount they actually assume the risk of the loss, unlike Hedgies w 30% discount. 30% discount not only serves as a trading cushion, but also means that they stand to gain 43%, along with some other tricks, way more than that if price is at par! That's imho the main difference.
As to OP's question on SMT's I think we would see more of HF financial wizardy over here, as Steemit being a media platform, naturally lends it self to self-promotion abuse...