11–20 of 433 posts
The research in the article was not quite clear. Was their only “sign of life” measured by tweets? What about capitalization, transaction volume...anything?
It’s almost like... they got busy and started working on what they promised to do.
Its pretty rare for VC and PE firms to just be blatantly ripped off like a good portion of ICO investors are.
As far as I can this is due to 3 things.
1) Geography, Most VC/PE firms only invest in a particular country and know the laws as they relate to the contracts they sign with companies. This ensures that they can atleast try and go after the founders, legally speaking, if any "shenanigans" occur.
2) KYC, most will only invest after performing due diligence, which always includes meeting the team and confirming through lawyers that the team is who they say they are and they own the IP they say they do.
3) Contracts, I've participated in a few ICO's and never signed anything. I realized I was essentially giving money to a complete stranger with nothing more than an IOU from someone who I'll never meet and in many ICO cases, never have any way to find them.
Fortunetly for ICO's as a legit means to raise money these are all solvable. They just require "adults in the room.".
If you look at the successful ICO's from a professional investors angle(VC,PE) they all followed the above 3 steps.
"Still, all investors should probably sell their coins within the first six months, the study found." If all investors should sell their coins, who is the counterparty that should buy them?
the industry standard term for them is "the suckers"
I'm so surprised that smart contracts aren't being used to release the funds over some set of time, with the ability for community to vote to block it if they feel team has stalled. Nobody needs $20 or $50m on day 1.
Why would anyone running an ICO agree to that? Clearly the current system ‘works’. They get money, no accountability, and everyone just moves on. No wonder crypto-currencies enjoy such a positive image among the ‘haters’ and ‘doubters’. Because they keep earning it.
So I've been doing alot of thinking lately about traditional VC and PE vs ICO's for work. Its pretty rare for VC and PE firms to just be blatantly ripped off like a good portion of ICO investors are. As far as I can this is due to 3 things. 1) Geography, Most VC/PE firms only invest in a particular country and know the laws as they relate to the contracts they sign with companies. This ensures that they can atleast t…
At which point you end up with an overcomplicated share certificate.
That's long. I would have expected the end to come within hours of the funds being released to the perps. Err. Entrepreneurs.
So I've been doing alot of thinking lately about traditional VC and PE vs ICO's for work. Its pretty rare for VC and PE firms to just be blatantly ripped off like a good portion of ICO investors are. As far as I can this is due to 3 things. 1) Geography, Most VC/PE firms only invest in a particular country and know the laws as they relate to the contracts they sign with companies. This ensures that they can atleast t…
You are missing part of the story: before ICOs there is a presale phase where some projects finish before the ICO. This is where real competition with VCs happens since the top projects receive more money from non traditional investors using cryptoassets than the one promised by traditional VCs (except in very rare cases).
In this context: (1) Geography does not matter and (2) KYC/AML is enforced.
The advantage for real entrepreneurs is receiving a bigger investment in short time.
Disclosure: I work in this kind of syndicates.
That's long. I would have expected the end to come within hours of the funds being released to the perps. Err. Entrepreneurs.
I imagine the facade must be maintained long enough for the checks to irrevocably clear, which can actually take a while. The big bad evil fiat government money system has the advantage and disadvantage of being able to claw back transactions for quite a while, since it's basically the fundamental primitive of the system that ensures integrity of the system. (That is, at the foundation, the money system tends not to…
Recently helped a friend extract his company from a wire fraud scam. Wires, particularly international wires, are surprisingly irrevocable. You basically have to get the receiving bank to agree to send the money back.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s almost like... they got busy and started working on what they promised to do.
Or they ran away with the money and don’t want to be as easy to track.