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Easiest Path to Riches on the Web? An Initial Coin Offering

nytimes.com

121–130 of 310 posts

Re: Easiest Path to Riches on the Web? An Initial Coin Offering

#121
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure... and 3 guys in China control 50%+ of the Bitcoin network, and ETH mining will eventually centralize as well. What's your point? I'd rather have Janet Yellen controlling my currency than Jihan Wu/Barry Silbert/Brian Armstrong.

Could you elaborate on why you'd prefer Yellen?

A life time of scholarship dedicated to economics on monetary policy?

Re: Easiest Path to Riches on the Web? An Initial Coin Offering

#122
post #100

Can someone in the know shed some light on why does every project need its own currency?! Why isn't a standard coin like BTC or eth good enough?

Why does every company need its own stock certificates?

It's a token representing ownership.

Re: Easiest Path to Riches on the Web? An Initial Coin Offering

#123
post #8

I'm sorry but this is so absurd. They are doing the equivalent of printing their own monopoly money in the garage and then selling it for real currency... dollars.

"A fool and his money are soon parted" Sounds fitting, huh?

And on the internet, a fool and his folly are soon united.

Re: Easiest Path to Riches on the Web? An Initial Coin Offering

#124
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In early 2017, the Harvard Business Review suggested that blockchain is a foundational technology and thus "has the potential to create new foundations for our economic and social systems." It further observed that while foundational innovations can have enormous impact, "It will take decades for blockchain to seep into our economic and social infrastructure." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain

Let me see if I can explain this better. 500 years ago was 1517. This is just a bit into the Age of Discovery. We hadn't even managed to sail all the way around the world yet (that wouldn't come until 1522). The Enlightenment was still a couple centuries away. Feudalism was still a thing, plagues still routinely struck. Absolute monarchs reigned over lands. Most people still lived on subsistence agriculture and would…

> it is the height of tech arrogance, not to mention a gross lack of awareness of history, to put a yet largely unproven technology that most of the human population has not even heard of on the same level as vaccinations

I said 'economically important'. The couple years they add to our life expectancy is great, but vaccines weren't really associated with an enormous transfer of wealth on the same level as, say, the railroads or the age of sail. (And wouldn't have even if Salk had patented the polio vaccine.)

Re: Easiest Path to Riches on the Web? An Initial Coin Offering

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me see if I can explain this better. 500 years ago was 1517. This is just a bit into the Age of Discovery. We hadn't even managed to sail all the way around the world yet (that wouldn't come until 1522). The Enlightenment was still a couple centuries away. Feudalism was still a thing, plagues still routinely struck. Absolute monarchs reigned over lands. Most people still lived on subsistence agriculture and would…

> it is the height of tech arrogance, not to mention a gross lack of awareness of history, to put a yet largely unproven technology that most of the human population has not even heard of on the same level as vaccinations I said 'economically important'. The couple years they add to our life expectancy is great, but vaccines weren't really associated with an enormous transfer of wealth on the same level as, say, the…

Vaccines are one of the major reasons we have so many people now (along with germ theory, hand washing, modern medication, etc). The billions of people who lived through childhood, who otherwise might have died, to buy our hardware and use our apps would probably beg to differ. :)

Re: Easiest Path to Riches on the Web? An Initial Coin Offering

#127

I have a fetish for watching complicated court cases play through. What you realize is a judge in a courtroom has a lot of power. They can take your money, freedom or even kids. However, if I had few hundred thousand in Ethereum encrypted placed into a few random anonymous git hub repros, well, the government can't take it. It is truly yours. No one can take it. That must be horrifying proposition for (some) governme…

>few hundred thousand in Ethereum encrypted placed into a few random anonymous git hub repros

I would advise not storing anything having to do with your Ethereum private keys in a Github repo.

Re: Easiest Path to Riches on the Web? An Initial Coin Offering

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is the height of tech arrogance, not to mention a gross lack of awareness of history, to put a yet largely unproven technology that most of the human population has not even heard of on the same level as vaccinations I said 'economically important'. The couple years they add to our life expectancy is great, but vaccines weren't really associated with an enormous transfer of wealth on the same level as, say, the…

Vaccines are one of the major reasons we have so many people now (along with germ theory, hand washing, modern medication, etc). The billions of people who lived through childhood, who otherwise might have died, to buy our hardware and use our apps would probably beg to differ. :)

Fair enough. I guess my thinking was that that's not really an arbitrage opportunity in the same way that buying tea in China and selling it in the UK is.

Re: Easiest Path to Riches on the Web? An Initial Coin Offering

#129
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you go to https://coinmarketcap.com/ you will see they have info on over 600 individual crypto currencies. 99% of them are going to be worthless long term. Best case scenario a handful of them survive. I'd be extremely skeptical of any coin that distributes coins via an ICO or "pre-sale" instead of via competitive mining like Bitcoin.

Mining is a waste of energy. An ICO makes sense if they 1) have a product that benefits from a blockchain, 2) have a great team and a demo of their product.

Mining doesn't waste energy, it's the cost the network pays for security, and it usefully indexes the value of the token rewarded to miners for securing the network to their cost of electricity, grounding the token value in some hard-to-manipulate real-world value.

Re: Easiest Path to Riches on the Web? An Initial Coin Offering

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this sentiment. The sentiment on HN is that ICO promoters/startups are all scammer. My company, Pipeline Network is going to launch our ICO soon. We would be more than happy to get some guide/mentorship from the YC community.

I hope that instead of slinging mud at ICOs, the YC community reaches out to firms like yours. Calling them all scams will not stop the next ICO from getting bigger. Note to blockchain-denialists: there are 10s of billions of capital, a deep enough pool for thousands of ICOs. Slinging mud will also not help make ICOs any safer, nor protect financial systems outside of blockchains from collateral damage should firms f…

Cui bono? In a world with ICO crowd funding, the roles of a VC firm like YC is greatly diminished. It's not surprising the buggy whip manufacturer is casting doubt on the dangers of the automobile.
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