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Filecoin Suspends ICO After Raising $186M in One Hour

financemagnates.com

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Re: Filecoin Suspends ICO After Raising $186M in One Hour

#81
I'm kind of amazed how Filecoin managed to create such a hype, even though its nothing more than a whitepaper right now.

I mean, there are already 2 or 3 coins that are doing something very similar and already have at least a working prototype (eg Siacoin, Storj), or have an interesting algo like Proof of Storage from Burst. Is there anything that makes Filecoin superior compared to the other's, or is it just that its VC-backed?

Re: Filecoin Suspends ICO After Raising $186M in One Hour

#82
post #77

What's important to note about ICOs is not necessarily whether the idea is actually practical and that it will work. What matters right now is whether the idea can stir our intellect and get the crowds excited. This is because behind the idea there's a new token which value is completely driven by the excitement of the crowds (it's pure speculation). If I invest N amount of money in a token which gets people excited,…

ICOs are a new breed of gambling.

Re: Filecoin Suspends ICO After Raising $186M in One Hour

#83

For most storage, one needs it to be local to compute or easy to put behind a CDN - e.i. in a datacenter or on a very fast network that is connected to the datacenters. If not, you are cut out from the main commercial storage market. What is left is: - People who want to store stuff that is can not be legally stored on existing networks, such as illegal drug or porn stuff. - People who need secure stuff stored in a d…

That's pretty much my take as well. I really like the concepts behind IPFS and FileCoin and I think they're really fine piece of software engineering (well, IPFS is, can't say much about FileCoin yet) but as an other comment pointed out it's a solution in search of a problem.

I tried hard to find a use for IPFS but I failed. I could use it to share files with other people but simply having a publicly reachable web server is simpler and more convenient. People don't have to install IPFS or use a public gateway to get my content.

The cool feature is being able to rehost any content if you want to "cache" it but that's only possible if the original provider decided to host it through IPFS, so there's kind of a chicken-and-egg issue.

I can't really use it for backup either unless I pay a third party to always cache my data, but in this case I might as well use tarnsap, dropbox or something similar and it'll probably be even more straightforward.

So it's a pretty cool piece of tech but sadly I simply have zero practical use for it.

Re: Filecoin Suspends ICO After Raising $186M in One Hour

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto currency are the new tulip bulbs[1]. Only some are going to make money. Current buyers are relying on greater fools to take these off their hands. A crash is eminent so hold tight and wait for it. You will have plenty of opportunity. History will repeat itself as new fools arrive on the scene[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stock_market_crashes_a...

I am starting to worry that this bubble is going to grow until it threatens the world economy.

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Re: Filecoin Suspends ICO After Raising $186M in One Hour

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on your post I went and looked up that question/answer portion, and I think the back and forth is illuminating in it's lack of either communication or actual capability: TL;DR: It's a solution in search of a problem, like so much good, early technology. Dalton Caldwell [31:07] – What is the burning, and it’s okay if it’s not consumers, but what is the thing that, with Filecoin, that is gonna make, whether it’s…

Is it me or is the elephant in the room like "get paid to put pirated movies, games, music, software on the network" Obviously, no one is going to admit it because then your network is tainted but every file sharing outfit ultimately ends up do pirated. I've been mining lbry and it seems lot more ahead of these others. https://lbry.io/

It's not, the real business model here probably looks a lot like rapidshare.

Re: Filecoin Suspends ICO After Raising $186M in One Hour

#86
post #12

I listened to this YC podcast[1] twice with Juan Benet. Listening to Juan talk about a lot of historical information and the correlations he drew was fascinating. When he tried to explain the need for Filecoin to Dalton, I just didn't hear it. Dalton kept asking him over and over what the point was and he kept giving non-answers (at least in my opinion which doesn't mean much to be honest). I understand the goal of t…

Based on your post I went and looked up that question/answer portion, and I think the back and forth is illuminating in it's lack of either communication or actual capability: TL;DR: It's a solution in search of a problem, like so much good, early technology. Dalton Caldwell [31:07] – What is the burning, and it’s okay if it’s not consumers, but what is the thing that, with Filecoin, that is gonna make, whether it’s…

[deleted]

Re: Filecoin Suspends ICO After Raising $186M in One Hour

#87
post #12

I listened to this YC podcast[1] twice with Juan Benet. Listening to Juan talk about a lot of historical information and the correlations he drew was fascinating. When he tried to explain the need for Filecoin to Dalton, I just didn't hear it. Dalton kept asking him over and over what the point was and he kept giving non-answers (at least in my opinion which doesn't mean much to be honest). I understand the goal of t…

I like what Juan had to say, it's good stuff and IPFS has the potential of being very disruptive.

With Filecoin I think what happened in that conversation was that to Juan it wasn't a big deal, it's just one of the things possible in the IPFS paradigm. But since crypto currency is all the rage these days, and this being YC, he was being lead to talk about the money side of it, but I don't think he really gave it much thought, other than that Filecoin is a neat way to trade storage without any paper/fiat currency, across country borders, etc.

To put it another way - IPFS is the thing. Filecoin is just a side-effect. But in our present times, Filecoin is worth actual millions, while IPFS is just a protocol. But it's clearly a fluke, the most important technology/idea here is IPFS.

Re: Filecoin Suspends ICO After Raising $186M in One Hour

#88
post #19

This is probably a money laundry/tax evasion operation. I don't believe these "big name Silicon Valley investors" just flush such amounts of money down a toilet without a hidden agenda.

The big name valley investors got in at 50 cents per FIL in an advisor only pre-raise. The $180mm in the first hour is from your average Joe accredited investor who bought in at like $2.63 per FIL. The price is now $4.50+ for future investors. If there was a liquid resale market, the SV investors have nearly made 10x already. Of course, they cant resale for a while due to vesting and legal restrictions.

Re: Filecoin Suspends ICO After Raising $186M in One Hour

#89
The end result of Filecoin will be extreme centralization just like Bitcoin mining unless there are extreme legal issues that makes everyone scared of being part of the network (e.g. child porn.)

Thus there will be a few ultra large cost optimized providers probably similar to BackBlaze that handle 90% of all storage on the network.

Does that extreme centralization fulfill the vision of Filecoin?

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