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Fools and their crypto

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Re: Fools and their crypto

#121

Post by FabHK »

ncallaway wrote: post #60
richardknop wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so early. People have been developing apps on top of Bitcoin Blockchain for years now. Ethereum has been almost 2 and half years ago. I am not expecting any unicorns like Google/Facebook but at least couple of dapps with actual customers (e.g. not couple hundred crypto fanatics that sign up to every dapp just to pump the price) that are growing revenue and customer base and seem like a legitimate business. I…

Think back to when people had been building websites for 2 years on the internet. It's still early days. 2 years feels like a long time, but it's not that long.

The WWW was developed 1989, first software (browser) in 1990, first websites went live in 1991, Mosaic came out in 1993, and things really exploded from 1994 on, with Amazon, Spiegel Online (German weekly newspaper), Pizza Hut, The Economist, etc. all going online.

Dotcom bubble was 1997 to 2001.

Bitcoin white paper came out in 2008, first software release in 2009. With comparable development, we'd have expected an explosion of usage and applications from 2013 already (that didn't happen), and a bubble about 2016 to 2020 (that arguably did happen).

At any rate, the WWW was super useful (and was being extensively used) pre- and during the bubble. You cannot say the same about cryptocurrencies.

(And by the way, during the dotcom bubble there were several companies, such as Flooz and Beenz, offering digital currencies. They're all defunct now. If only they had been decentralised on the blockchain...)

Re: Fools and their crypto

#122

Post by FabHK »

CPLX wrote: post #118
FabHK wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This part of the process is usually considered one of the first steps in a successful business. You're absolutely right, of course. However, I'm reminded of this wonderful (recent) quote by Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi: "Business is actually surprisingly good for everything that the company went through. The part of the business that is not going well is the profitability part. We have some details to work out." http…

I don't understand the "however" part. People actually want to press a button on their phone and have a car show up and take them somewhere seamlessly. Uber has been doing that since they launched. Doing it profitably and sustainably is another question. But the basis of the enterprise isn't even a little confusing.

I think we're on the same page.

My point: a business without actual products people want to use is not viable (contrary to what some appear to think), but a business without profitability is not viable, either.

(you're right, Uber has a slick product, though arguably because they subsidise it.)

Re: Fools and their crypto

#123

Post by MarkMMullin »

prklmn wrote: post #93
viridian wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a registered Libertarian (lol) who isn't against reigning in ICOs. My chief concern is regulation creep from problems that do exist, to problems that may exist in the future, but aren't really a current concern. I find targeting the latter gives a government a whole lot of elbow room to extract wealth, via things like trade license fees, ICO officiation fees, a requirement that a coin some some property that crea…

your point about needing a tech background to invest is like saying that one should have a finance background to invest in an IPO. I disagree.

Having a tech background does allow you to better understand what is going on and how it might provide value - conversely, a finance background is probably a good thing to have if you're looking at the IPO for a B2B financial services company

Re: Fools and their crypto

#124

Post by milesvp »

cdancette wrote: post #58

There's a thing that bothers me with ICO, it's when people call it an investment. It has nothing to do with an investment, it's basically a presale for the service that the company will provide. It offers you nothing of what buying shares of the company will (except when explicitly specified in the token sale) : no dividend, no voting power... Expecting to earn money by buying tokens in an ICO is pure speculation, as…

I totally agree with you. I am, however reminded of minecraft, and I wonder if there are any lessons to learn from there. Minecraft was an odd anomaly where Notch made it clear that he was going to keep increasing the game's price as it got more features (largely unheard of at the time, where game's prices tended to only go down). There was a point where I bought a license when it was $10, and I knew it was going to be a hit. It just was the right game at the right time that captured too much of the imagination of everyone who played it. But it never occurred to me to buy lots of licenses at $10 knowing they'd be worth more the next time he ratcheted up his game price. Course, reselling licenses has it's risks, and was painful enough I might not have bothered had it occurred to me.

I wonder if there'd been a marketplace for reselling license tokens and a blockchain to keep track of these tokens, if I might have taken the plunge and purchased a number of these tokens with the expectation to make money from them when license costs went up?

Re: Fools and their crypto

#125

Post by salvar »

blattimwind wrote: post #120
salvar wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However you feel about it, the change is happening. People clearly don't think the ambiguity is as problematic as you do.

What makes you say that? Neither is it inevitable, nor do people not care, as is evident by that literally every time an article using this term the wrong way is posted, people will post clarifications what the article is actually about and express their annoyance regarding the issue. Clearly, people do actually care about others trying to coopt well-established language for their often fishy schemes.

Yes, a small number of people do care about this -- how many comments are these compared to the ones that are discussing the topic itself?

All I'm saying is: If you're going to try to tell people to not change the language as people seem to want to change it, because you don't want the language to change, then prepare for complaining for a long time with no results.

Re: Fools and their crypto

#126

Post by tim333 »

nofilter wrote: post #97

Serious question: are there any ICOs that aren't scams? Or are there any ICOs that have raised money for something and have actually delivered that something? Seems like everyone from children to grandmas are doing ICOs these days and I've yet to hear about anything that _wasn't_ a scam.

I'd say there are some. Dragonchain for example which I invested in seems ethically run and have delivered pretty much what they said.

Re: Fools and their crypto

#127

Post by tim333 »

r053bud wrote: post #6

For real though...when will we stop using crypto to refer to cryptocurrencies? Crypto is short for one thing and it's cryptography.

The meaning of words is what people understand them to mean. Policing language so people use it as you think they should has never worked very well.

Re: Fools and their crypto

#128

Post by fouc »

viridian wrote: post #85
cromwellian wrote: post #64

Every few decades, libertarians need to be reminded why regulations exist. Time passes, and people forget why the SEC, FTC, FDA, FDIC, OSHA, child labor laws, et al were even created. Cryptocurrencies created a completely anarchic monetary system, which people have used to layer investment systems on top of. Naturally, low hanging fruit scams and cons have arisen, and some form of governing structure will eventually…

I'm a registered Libertarian (lol) who isn't against reigning in ICOs. My chief concern is regulation creep from problems that do exist, to problems that may exist in the future, but aren't really a current concern. I find targeting the latter gives a government a whole lot of elbow room to extract wealth, via things like trade license fees, ICO officiation fees, a requirement that a coin some some property that crea…

Having full understanding of a whitepaper doesn't give you protection from bad code and other scams does it?
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