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Avoiding being scammed in ICO “pump-and-dump” schemes

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Re: Avoiding being scammed in ICO “pump-and-dump” schemes

#51

Post by jetti »

sodafountan wrote: post #29
api wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is substantially worse than the late 90s. In the late 90s there were a lot of very premature IPOs and a lot of money raised for bad ideas, but very few of them were total cranks or scams. I could in fact buy pet food on pets.com-- it just wasn't a viable business and wasn't well executed. The CueCat was a horrible business idea but CueCats actually did exist and you could in fact use them. (I used to have on…

I can agree with that. There isn't a whole lot of utility in individual ICO's. However if you look at ICO's in general the concept is pretty remarkable, ICO's essentially facilitate the "move fast and break things" mentality of Silicon Valley. If ICO's work over the next 10 years (after the crash and into the future) that's a pretty great tool that Silicon Valley now has, they can now surpass the SEC and having the b…

The SEC has ruled that some coins in ICOs are actually securities and are subject to the SEC rules[1] so they aren't going to really bypass the SEC at all. It's just a matter of time before things get ugly.

[1]http://fortune.com/2017/07/26/sec-icos/

Re: Avoiding being scammed in ICO “pump-and-dump” schemes

#52

Post by sodafountan »

benchaney wrote: post #45
sodafountan wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's akin to saying in order to avoid the dot-com crash you should avoid the web in 1997.

That would have been excellent investment advice in 1997

You're off by three years, good advice in 2000

Re: Avoiding being scammed in ICO “pump-and-dump” schemes

#54

Post by sogen »

api wrote: post #26
sodafountan wrote: post #19

Ah the dot-com bubble 2.0. I think it'll go down in history as the crypto-crash because that's cool to say. But seriously this is exactly what happened in the late 90's during the rise of the web. There is real value in Bitcoin, there is real value in blockchain technology. There probably isn't any value in PETCOIN or AOLCOIN if you catch my drift. Smart investors who can stomach risk can make a lot of money over the…

No, this is substantially worse than the late 90s. In the late 90s there were a lot of very premature IPOs and a lot of money raised for bad ideas, but very few of them were total cranks or scams. I could in fact buy pet food on pets.com-- it just wasn't a viable business and wasn't well executed. The CueCat was a horrible business idea but CueCats actually did exist and you could in fact use them. (I used to have on…

I'll launch an ICO for: "bot that writes ICO papers in LaTeX"

Re: Avoiding being scammed in ICO “pump-and-dump” schemes

#55

Post by erikb »

quuquuquu wrote: post #22
erikb wrote: post #12

Just to provide more options to the discussion and because nobody has mentioned it: Have you considered that all ICOs are a scam of some sort? Or that you can participate in scams and still end up being a winner? To get the noodle baking about the first part: The goal of every public offering is to make more money than what the stuff you're offering is worth to you. Of course it may have more value to other people fo…

Ehhh the definition of every successful business is one that creates more value than the sum of its parts. There has to be a consumer somewhere, and consumers usually buy something with intrinsic value (you chop down a tree, I buy the wood from you for my house.) When there is no intrinsic value being gained, this means that the company is really just a shell game, moving money around. Think poker. People are volunta…

I like your way to define it better, because it also provides an inherent way of avoiding (more, probably not all) scams.

Don't buy stuff for the sole purpose of hoping for profit. Things you buy need to have intrinsic value. The least thing you have is a logical reason why someone else would buy it for more. And in that case early adopters of ICO-scams are doing it the smart(er) way. Because they buy coins for less than the offering price and can guess from marketing hype what they may get on offering day for it.

Re: Avoiding being scammed in ICO “pump-and-dump” schemes

#56

Post by api »

sogen wrote: post #54
api wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is substantially worse than the late 90s. In the late 90s there were a lot of very premature IPOs and a lot of money raised for bad ideas, but very few of them were total cranks or scams. I could in fact buy pet food on pets.com-- it just wasn't a viable business and wasn't well executed. The CueCat was a horrible business idea but CueCats actually did exist and you could in fact use them. (I used to have on…

I'll launch an ICO for: "bot that writes ICO papers in LaTeX"

If you know LaTeX you could probably bill yourself out to ICO scammers to port their white papers.

Re: Avoiding being scammed in ICO “pump-and-dump” schemes

#57

Post by erikb »

nkrisc wrote: post #25
erikb wrote: post #12

Just to provide more options to the discussion and because nobody has mentioned it: Have you considered that all ICOs are a scam of some sort? Or that you can participate in scams and still end up being a winner? To get the noodle baking about the first part: The goal of every public offering is to make more money than what the stuff you're offering is worth to you. Of course it may have more value to other people fo…

I think it's important to maintain a distinction between an intentional, predatory scam and something that's just an ill-conceived, but well-intentioned, bad idea that ends up flopping.

I think nobody wants to ignore the second part.

However I don't agree with the good intention, bad intention part. In truth we all want to make the world better and we all want to gain from it. While there are few really predatory offers, many are just basic human selfishness+ignorance. It's the difference between taking someone's purse and finding that the cashier gave you too much change. The second part is not really evil, but it's very likely to happen. So you better count twice before handing out your money.

Re: Avoiding being scammed in ICO “pump-and-dump” schemes

#58

Post by quuquuquu »

erikb wrote: post #55
quuquuquu wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ehhh the definition of every successful business is one that creates more value than the sum of its parts. There has to be a consumer somewhere, and consumers usually buy something with intrinsic value (you chop down a tree, I buy the wood from you for my house.) When there is no intrinsic value being gained, this means that the company is really just a shell game, moving money around. Think poker. People are volunta…

I like your way to define it better, because it also provides an inherent way of avoiding (more, probably not all) scams. Don't buy stuff for the sole purpose of hoping for profit. Things you buy need to have intrinsic value. The least thing you have is a logical reason why someone else would buy it for more. And in that case early adopters of ICO-scams are doing it the smart(er) way. Because they buy coins for less…

Absolutely, I do agree!

Buying something expressly for profit, but masquerading it as a business, that = Herbalife.

Now, some people actually do drink Herbalife shakes, but usually they are doing so as a rite-of-passage to some kind of "next level of distributorship."

craziness, really :)

Re: Avoiding being scammed in ICO “pump-and-dump” schemes

#59

Post by nkrisc »

erikb wrote: post #57
nkrisc wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's important to maintain a distinction between an intentional, predatory scam and something that's just an ill-conceived, but well-intentioned, bad idea that ends up flopping.

I think nobody wants to ignore the second part. However I don't agree with the good intention, bad intention part. In truth we all want to make the world better and we all want to gain from it. While there are few really predatory offers, many are just basic human selfishness+ignorance. It's the difference between taking someone's purse and finding that the cashier gave you too much change. The second part is not rea…

I agree with you that both are on the same side of the spectrum, the point I'm making is that I think it's important to recognize that one is more sinister than the other.

Re: Avoiding being scammed in ICO “pump-and-dump” schemes

#60

Post by erikb »

nkrisc wrote: post #59
erikb wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think nobody wants to ignore the second part. However I don't agree with the good intention, bad intention part. In truth we all want to make the world better and we all want to gain from it. While there are few really predatory offers, many are just basic human selfishness+ignorance. It's the difference between taking someone's purse and finding that the cashier gave you too much change. The second part is not rea…

I agree with you that both are on the same side of the spectrum, the point I'm making is that I think it's important to recognize that one is more sinister than the other.

true
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