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Despite S.E.C. Warning, Wave of Initial Coin Offerings Grows

nytimes.com

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Re: Despite S.E.C. Warning, Wave of Initial Coin Offerings Grows

#141

Post by the_stc »

JSONwebtoken wrote: post #106
alistproducer2 wrote: post #55

I was involved with one of the bigger ICO right at the beginning of the ICO craze. I had pretty regular conversations with the project founder and was in talks to become the dev evangelist. The project had raised ~$5 million in ETH (this is when ETH was trading around $80). Despite the fact that this project had raised a crazy amount of money the whole project was being conceptualized and coded by a single 23 old guy…

I don't know the degree of complexity or technical ambition of the project you were a part of, but it's not unusual for a 23 year old guy to write most of the Ethereum app. In fact, that's probably the reason why most ICOs are a scam, there's an insanely low barrier to building a proof of concept. The boilerplate is like 15 lines. When it's so easy that any 20 year old backend dev can issue a token, you should alread…

>the same business model applied to a fiat currency

Ding ding ding, winner! So many of these just have no point in being as companies, let alone as a token.

At The STC, we're going to end sex trafficking in just like Apple and Amazon (and now Google and Spotify) ended music piracy. To operate, we must be an extrajurisdictional company which makes cryptocurrencies a useful way to get investment and pay dividends. But we're not going to issue tokens -- only shares. Ethereum will help us keep track of share ownership and allow easy trading, but we're not a "blockchain company".

I hope we see a new wave of post-ICO companies using these technologies as a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. We're probably leaving money on the table by saying that and not hyping up tokens and tech. Oh well, we're going to create a valuable business instead.

Re: Despite S.E.C. Warning, Wave of Initial Coin Offerings Grows

#142

Post by peter303 »

ajross wrote: post #49
rib3ye wrote: post #37

The problem is projects like these: http://bitqyck.me/ A classic hard-sell 80s pump and dump scam reborn in the ETH era. Bitqyck came to my attention through a family friend with very limited understanding of cryptocurrency, but just enough financial literacy to be in an investment group being fed these scams by people they trust as technical leadership. I imagine, ultimately, these people will demand protection from…

The problem is the whole idea of cryptocurrency as a growth investment. The symptom is a bunch of copycat scams trying to freeload on the broader market. Without the bull market of the early '90's, Belfort would have had no one to sell to. Same deal here. The root cause is the insanity happening in bitcoin (and now Ethereal, I guess). Mark my words: this will all come crashing down. I can't tell you when or why, but…

Only about three have an intrinsic economic basis as a currency. And much of that is for illegal goods and ransoms.

Re: Despite S.E.C. Warning, Wave of Initial Coin Offerings Grows

#143

Post by NumberCruncher »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #97
vanattab wrote: post #3

I am thinking a short position in bitcoin is in my near future. I am not saying bitcoin is doomed to fail but I am pretty confident this shit coin crazy is going to hit the fan sooner or later and it's going to drag the "legitimate" crypto currencies down.

Bitcoin is deflationary...meaniing there's a set limit that can be minted... once that limit is reached...all coins traded will be ones that are already in circulation--meaning there will be presumably higher demand, because of this, some are expecting BTC to go > 25k at some point in the future.

>> meaning there's a set limit that can be minted

Except the fact that anybody can start his own cryptocurrency and therefore there is no upper limit.

Re: Despite S.E.C. Warning, Wave of Initial Coin Offerings Grows

#144

Post by HFTGuru »

adjkant wrote: post #73
dsacco wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That volatility is perfect for a mean reversion strategy.

I've been testing this out over the past 6 days with $500 to see how it would actually work while keeping my current amount in. I've been working a bit more on the micro level, but it still is pretty consistent in its volatility (lol). So far I have a 4.6% total return on trying to capitalize on the volatility. That's much less than if I had just held at the original buy. I'm going to keep doing it though to see how…

I've also been testing out the volatility with automated trading scripts, trading on the dimes and nickles. Unlimited amounts of trades with no transaction fees and this much volatility is a dream land. I started trading 4 months ago and turned 10k into a little under 75k. I was a bit late to the game, but I can't imagine how much some of the other automated traders are making.

Re: Despite S.E.C. Warning, Wave of Initial Coin Offerings Grows

#145

Post by wmf »

dustingetz wrote: post #125

Aren't all these people just going to be arrested? It's not illegal today, but it will be soon enough, and when you piss off powerful people they find a way to shut you down, one way or another.

The SEC's point is that it is already illegal today, and only the most egregious ones (e.g. Trendon Shavers, Charlie Shrem, Alexander Vinnik) will be criminally prosecuted.

Re: Despite S.E.C. Warning, Wave of Initial Coin Offerings Grows

#146

Post by suzzer99 »

Radim wrote: post #60
eterm wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst of is that early adopters will cash out boat loads of money and use that fact to claim they were right all along, as if somehow the top of the pyramid making money proves it's not a pyramid.

Mark my words: this will all come crashing down. I can't tell you when or why, but it's not sustainable. The irony: lots of people feel the same way about the "real" debt-based modern economy. A ridiculous Ponzi scheme, clearly unsustainable in the long run. As always, the time horizon matters when talking about investments and sustainability. Given the right time window, everything works, and everything fails.

Let me know when BTC is backed by tanks and fighter jets.

Re: Despite S.E.C. Warning, Wave of Initial Coin Offerings Grows

#147

Post by Consultant32452 »

Radim wrote: post #60
eterm wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst of is that early adopters will cash out boat loads of money and use that fact to claim they were right all along, as if somehow the top of the pyramid making money proves it's not a pyramid.

Mark my words: this will all come crashing down. I can't tell you when or why, but it's not sustainable. The irony: lots of people feel the same way about the "real" debt-based modern economy. A ridiculous Ponzi scheme, clearly unsustainable in the long run. As always, the time horizon matters when talking about investments and sustainability. Given the right time window, everything works, and everything fails.

"The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."

Re: Despite S.E.C. Warning, Wave of Initial Coin Offerings Grows

#148

Post by alistproducer2 »

charlesdm wrote: post #136
alistproducer2 wrote: post #55

I was involved with one of the bigger ICO right at the beginning of the ICO craze. I had pretty regular conversations with the project founder and was in talks to become the dev evangelist. The project had raised ~$5 million in ETH (this is when ETH was trading around $80). Despite the fact that this project had raised a crazy amount of money the whole project was being conceptualized and coded by a single 23 old guy…

Perhaps a stupid question since I haven't followed this too closely, but is it THAT easy to raise money with a project? I have seen some $50-80-100m numbers flying around recently.

yes it is. put up a site, write a white paper (even one that doesn't make any sense), create an ERC20 token and you can raise lots of money.

Re: Despite S.E.C. Warning, Wave of Initial Coin Offerings Grows

#149

Post by alistproducer2 »

Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #132
alistproducer2 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>23 year old guy to write most of the Ethereum app The project is a from-scratch smart contract blockchain: including a new contract language

The project is almost certainly Aeternity. They forked Zack's code, used his name to publicize their project and then paid Zack off to join their fork with tokens from his own chain! Zack is a smart guy but the whole thing is a shit show.

I won't comment on who the project is. It's not my goal to bad mouth anyone. I just wanted to share my experience.

Re: Despite S.E.C. Warning, Wave of Initial Coin Offerings Grows

#150

Post by blhack »

SilasX wrote: post #140
blhack wrote: post #110

To put it into perspective, the tezos ICO recently raised a little more than $200,000,000 worth of BTC and ETH. Here's their twitter: https://twitter.com/tez0s?lang=en Here's their subreddit: https://reddit.com/r/tezos Here's their website: https://tezos.com It doesn't look like they have really updated anybody on what they're doing with $200,000,000 since their ICO closed.

Why are people throwing money at these? It makes no sense. You have no guarantee that they won't just run off with the money, except your trust in the operators.

This one is particularly baffling to me. $200,000,000 is a fortune.

We're all presumably working on our own startups here. Can you imagine getting $200,000,000 in seed funding without even starting on your project? Just absolutely WTF is going on there?

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