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Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized

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Re: Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized

#161

Post by JumpCrisscross »

darawk wrote: post #153
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does that have to do with what we're talking about? Generally speaking, if my things get stolen, "it was stolen by X and not Y" is not a value-adding rebuttal. It is actually counterproductive if X ( e.g. , a cryptocurrency thief) is harder to gain recourse against than Y ( e.g. an FDIC-insured bank).

> Generally speaking, if my things get stolen, "it was stolen by X and not Y" is not a value-adding rebuttal. It is actually counterproductive if X (e.g., a cryptocurrency thief) is harder to gain recourse against than Y (e.g. an FDIC-insured bank). That's certainly true. But the issues around people losing their coins and having their keys stolen can be solved by better UX and application security. Essentially crypt…

> If you want to make the case that they are in fact central

End financial services users repeatedly choose convenience and risk guarantees over self-management. This isn't something which can be papered over with a saucy UI, particularly when the tangible benefit is difficult to describe. ("Decentralization" isn't a benefit, it's an attribute.)

Re: Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized

#162

Post by darawk »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #160
darawk wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cash transfers and barters are trustless Yes, but they require physical presence. > Wires are trustless (in being reasonably irrevocable) in a manner similar to cryptocurrencies (i.e. if we ignore the plumbing). Irrevocability is not the same as trustlessness. Your transaction is still being intermediated by an entity that can choose to appropriate your funds otherwise. > Cryptocurrencies solve for trust in the mos…

Irrevocability is not the same as trustlessness. Your transaction is still being intermediated by an entity that can choose to appropriate your funds otherwise. Personally I trust those entities much more than some shlocky fly-by-night crypto exchange. To each his own, I guess.

> Personally I trust those entities much more than some shlocky fly-by-night crypto exchange.

You aren't trusting an exchange when you send a transaction on the blockchain.

Re: Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized

#163

Post by chipotle_coyote »

garmaine wrote: post #80
s73v3r_ wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they were working on it, though, one would think they'd be delivering updates to show their progress.

As someone who has actually worked on such things, you'd expect updates to drop off to a trickle on an actually productive engineering project. At least compared to the pre-ICO hype. A few regular blog posts every other week, vs. a constant storm of promotional material and hype.

I've actually worked on such things, too, and in my experience, "I'm too busy programming to let you know my company is still around" isn't a particularly good excuse even at tiny two- and three-person shops. When I've seen that happen at cottage software companies in the past, it has never been a sign of health: more often than not, when they finally communicate again, it's to tell us that they're closing shop.

And more to the point, tiny two- and three-person shops probably aren't doing ICOs. If your company is big enough to undertake a public offering of any kind, it's damn well big enough to have someone on staff whose responsibilities explicitly include some kind of community relations work.

Re: Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized

#164

Post by darawk »

mehrdadn wrote: post #115
darawk wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a lot of trust involved in a cryptocurrency transfer. You have to trust your technical competence to have securely mounted your wallet. You have to trust the wallet you're sending money to is the wallet it's supposed to go to. You have to trust the person you're sending money to will do what you're paying them to do. You have to trust the network to maintain the value of the currency you're sending and rec…

> The transfer itself does not require trust. That's the value. Don't you need to trust nodes that they'll pass down and/or include process your transaction, and that they'll do so in a timely fashion? Which seems just like trusting that, say, your bank or the Mastercard servers will process your transaction properly? Not to mention the more mundane aspects like the fact that you still need to trust that your ISP won…

> Don't you need to trust nodes that they'll pass down and/or include process your transaction, and that they'll do so in a timely fashion?

Yes, but their incentives are structured to align with yours in that scenario. You are trusting them to act in their own interest.

Re: Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized

#165

Post by gascan »

darawk wrote: post #140
hudon wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. What if we put "beginning" as in "before it was even called the Internet"? Indeed, ARPANET, which came online in 1969, saw fast growth in the United States in the 70s. Nodes came online to use it , not to make a quick buck. The government subsidized it because its potential use was obvious. Email started being used in 1972, FTP in 1973. To compare these world-changing technologies that were invented and used merel…

> What if we put "beginning" as in "before it was even called the Internet"? Indeed, ARPANET, which came online in 1969, saw fast growth in the United States in the 70s. Nodes came online to use it, not to make a quick buck. People use cryptocurrency too. For value transfer, and to a more limited extent, for dapps like Augur. You seem to be criticizing the delta between the lofty hopes for it and it's actual usage. T…

So, I said there are plans for solving the energy consumption issue. And your counter-argument is what, exactly?

"I'll believe it when I see it"

Re: Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized

#166

Post by gascan »

pembrook wrote: post #47
chollida1 wrote: post #12

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…

> They just require "adults in the room." You mean like regulators and trusted intermediaries? Due diligence conducted by independent third parties? Like the real financial system has always had? So basically, we went through this whole ICO bubble to realize that things are the way they are for a reason.

Which is funnier: tech bros innovating their way to public transit, or bitcoin folks slowly reinventing financial regulation? -- Joseph Fink, Apr 2017

Re: Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized

#167

Post by mehrdadn »

darawk wrote: post #164
mehrdadn wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The transfer itself does not require trust. That's the value. Don't you need to trust nodes that they'll pass down and/or include process your transaction, and that they'll do so in a timely fashion? Which seems just like trusting that, say, your bank or the Mastercard servers will process your transaction properly? Not to mention the more mundane aspects like the fact that you still need to trust that your ISP won…

> Don't you need to trust nodes that they'll pass down and/or include process your transaction, and that they'll do so in a timely fashion? Yes, but their incentives are structured to align with yours in that scenario. You are trusting them to act in their own interest.

Isn't that the same with credit cards, wires, etc.? They make money from your transactions too.

Re: Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized

#168

Post by solotronics »

darawk wrote: post #149
madeofpalk wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But more to the point, blockchains are useful now, just like the internet was. They're just not useful for all the things that are being promised (yet) How long do we have to wait to find a valid use case for blockchains? It's been 10 years now and we're still asking the same question.

> How long do we have to wait to find a valid use case for blockchains? It's been 10 years now and we're still asking the same question. Here are some use cases that I think are potentially legit: - Value transfer - Prediction markets - Asset trading/custody (not just cryptoassets, I mean, potentially real estate, equities, etc. can be tokenized) - Venture capital that is more transparent and open (the ICO space is o…

all of this makes sense to be but what happens when someone hacks your grandmas cellphone then they own her house title and she cant open the front door?

I guess you could have a 3rd party that has to verify everything ( government ) but then you are basically back to just doing it with a paper deed at the courthouse.

Re: Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized

#169

Post by zackmorris »

ENGNR wrote: post #127
lucasmullens wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would blockchains redistribute wealth away from the wealthy?

Securities deregulation. On the one hand, investors deserve protections. On the other, has the regulation gone too far by design, locking out the middle class it used to serve so well. Why do companies wait until most of the value is already realized before they IPO these days Crypto could be Uber for securities, ignoring the regulator and using technology to self regulate, or by operating out of countries with light…

This is a fallacy. Generally regulations tend to protect consumers or vulnerable groups from harm. The recent global trend towards deregulation and austerity moves in the opposite direction of social democratic movements in Germany, Scandinavian countries and much of the EU. The end result being more of a wild west free for all that results in something more like the Gilded Age of the 19th century than a well-optimized free market like imagined on the Jetsons.

That said, there are certainly cases where financial market regulations have hurt the middle class. For example, a pattern day trader rule was imposed in February 2001 which required a $25,000 minimum balance to trade on margin:

http://www.finra.org/investors/day-trading-margin-requiremen...

More about trading on margin (in the most basic sense - potentially doubling your gains but wiping you out if your total stock holdings equal what you borrowed, triggering a margin call):

https://www.investopedia.com/university/margin/

The pattern day trader rule was introduced after the dot bomb with several stated goals like protecting inexperienced investors or limiting volatility. But it was really yet another tactic to keep the most lucrative forms of trading in the hands of wealthy/institutional investors and leave the masses in the slow lane of trading with their own money.

It's extremely important to know the nuances of regulations and their unintended consequences. But instead we only generally hear about deregulation from politicians, because they know that insiders (their base and lobbyists) will always win over the masses in a fully deregulated economy.

P.S. I didn't downvote you, because the sentiment you expressed is widespread and needs to be addressed

Re: Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized

#170

Post by gwern »

NathanCH wrote: post #51
matte_black wrote: post #29

Is there legit money to be made in ICOs without running a fraud?

Forget money, I would like to know of one legit ICO. One single ICO that has a product. One.

Augur is launching its finished distributed prediction markets product today. We'll see if anyone uses it, but that's an ICO with a product.
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