Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Half of ICOs Die Within Four Months After Token Sales Finalized

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 433 posts

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

#241

Post by jopsen »

chrisco255 wrote: post #219
jopsen wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the what the crypto-currencies promise is impossible to do with a few independent central vendors implementing that same standards for payments and contracts. And centralized solutions will always be faster.

Centralized databases are faster. Centralized consensus is dangerous for the same reason that a dictatorship is dangerous. The organization in charge of said solution would exercise dramatic control over the execution of said code. You need not look very far into the past to see egregious examples of organizations abusing their centralized position over data. I shudder the thought of a centralized actor having the sa…

Look at how certificate transparency is done.. a few servers using same protocol is all it takes.

Most crypto-things have this idea that they servers validating transactions have to be compensated and that anyone can do this validation. (validation == mining)

Having a few well regulated entities do all the mining is a centralized system that can be verified externally. Without all the cost of decentralization. And with the added security that validators are trusted entities.

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

#242

Post by chrisco255 »

arisAlexis wrote: post #222
opencl wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is a solution to unstable currencies in the same way that gasoline is a fire extinguisher. People in Venezuela that want to actually eat are using USD.

they cannot send or receive usd from abroad. they can do it with bitcoin. you get now the value proposition of a global currency that is not government controlled?

aris is technically correct. They are not legally allowed to bring a ton of USD into the country (if they're even well enough off to do so). And legally, they have to do so at government-mandated exchange rates (which no one does, because everyone buys/sells on the black market). Surely people are using USD where possible. But likely, they're HODLing their USDs (against the rapidly inflating Bolivares) wherever possible, too.

Meanwhile, no doubt some are using crypto to supplement their incomes/savings as well.

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

#243

Post by darawk »

funfunfunction wrote: post #237
darawk wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> You aren't trusting an exchange when you send a transaction on the blockchain. This is true, but exchanges have become the de facto on/off ramp for cryptos. If I want to acquire bitcoin without mining, how am I going to do it other than buying from a centralized entity? Edit: As I post this I remembered that Paradex, a decentralized exchange for ERC20 tokens built on 0x, was recently acquired by Coinbase[1], the la…

> This is true, but exchanges have become the de facto on/off ramp for cryptos. If I want to acquire bitcoin without mining, how am I going to do it other than buying from a centralized entity?

Sure, that's true. But once you own them, they're yours to do with as you please. You can also buy them from someone peer to peer if you really want to onramp in a 'decentralized' way.

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

#244

Post by splintercell »

craigc wrote: post #151

Haha what do you know. Another day, another anti-crypto article on the top of Hacker News. In this case, I agree with the overall sentiment. I don’t think these companies are actually “dying” though, but rather they were probably created as get rich quick schemes, so they took the millions of dollars they raised and then sailed off to some island somewhere. From the report > We use intensity of tweets from the crypto…

HN anti-cryptocurrency bingo:

- "It's just a glorified database"

- "It's just a slow database"

- "Congratulations, the crypto people just learned why regulations exists. Soon enough, we'd need to create each and every regulations in financial sector but for crypto"

- "Oh, to solve that problem, they'll have to do this other thing, and another thing, and soon enough you'd have recreated each and every aspect of our current financial system which they aimed to remove"

- "Can we stop using the word 'crypto' to mean 'cryptocurrencies'? I downvote any article's headline which uses 'crypto' to mean 'cryptocurrencies'"

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

#245

Post by atomical »

jopsen wrote: post #188
chrisco255 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Streaming money. What if you were paid by the second instead of by the hour? Or your bank account filled up live as you worked or performed services? Or companies that provided services to other companies were compensated in the same way? Businesses live and die by cash flow. What if cash flows instantly 24/7? What if you were able to do micropayments efficiently on the web? What if many contractual agreements betwee…

None of the what the crypto-currencies promise is impossible to do with a few independent central vendors implementing that same standards for payments and contracts. And centralized solutions will always be faster.

A settlement of a crypto payment is much faster than a credit card payment in terms of settlement time. And a credit card payment is centralized.

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

#246

Post by tialaramex »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #128
tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yep. the internet was around for years before it was viable. So were computers.

> the internet was around for years before it was viable. So were computers. The first electronic computers were purpose built to crack wartime codes [1][2]. The problem preceded the technology. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer

A Bombe is really, really not a computer. It has more in common with a clock, it's a fantastically complicated machine, but a computer it is not. Check out a video of them being used and it's more obvious.

Colossus was a computer, although it's very unlike anything today because it isn't a stored programme computer. So it's more like one of those LCD watch games from the 1980s, it could do something else than what it's doing now, but only by literally taking it to pieces and rewiring it.

But your main point is spot on. In the mid 1940s several machines including Colossus are built mostly by military groups and these fulfill different criteria for bring a "computer" as we'd understand it. But by 1950 companies are already selling these new "computers" for commercial use. The US Federal Government bought several in 1951.

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

#247

Post by JumpCrisscross »

darawk wrote: post #243
funfunfunction wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You aren't trusting an exchange when you send a transaction on the blockchain. This is true, but exchanges have become the de facto on/off ramp for cryptos. If I want to acquire bitcoin without mining, how am I going to do it other than buying from a centralized entity? Edit: As I post this I remembered that Paradex, a decentralized exchange for ERC20 tokens built on 0x, was recently acquired by Coinbase[1], the la…

> This is true, but exchanges have become the de facto on/off ramp for cryptos. If I want to acquire bitcoin without mining, how am I going to do it other than buying from a centralized entity? Sure, that's true. But once you own them, they're yours to do with as you please. You can also buy them from someone peer to peer if you really want to onramp in a 'decentralized' way.

> You can also buy them from someone peer to peer if you really want to onramp in a 'decentralized' way

Now we're back to no advantage over cash or bartering.

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

#248

Post by christianbryant »

syndev wrote: post #229
christianbryant wrote: post #211

In contrast, the ICO for SingularityNET has actually done quite well and received 5 times the amount of demand expected for their token sale; they postponed the end of their token sale date to properly handle the overwhelming demand. Feels most ICO sites are giving them 4/5 rating on average, but we'll how that goes. I think the reason this one in particular is doing so well is that the purpose of the sale feels usef…

Do you own some of this? Are you associated with the project in some way?

I'm in no way whatsoever connected with the SingularityNET ICO or project. I actually couldn't get on the whitelist but I'm curious if the underlying point of the ICO is why it "appears" to be doing better than your average one. Could it be a model for future projects and whether they decide to go IPO or ICO. Clearly more successful ICOs are good for the model in the long run.

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

#249

Post by lurker456 »

bduerst wrote: post #199
eximius wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the EVM hasn't found its great use yet. But Cryptocurrencies in general are being used widely for international currency movements and as currency in distressed countries like Venezuela where the 'black market' is just the regular market due to government instability.

The Venezuelan bolívar is not a good example of prime markets for cryptocurrencies. The forced exchange rates, runaway inflation, and general mismanagement has created a black market in which literally any other currency is better.

How would you send fiat to a family member stuck in Venezuela ? I agree that the value of cryptocurrency is hugely inflated, but it's not zero either. It's a good fit in some scenarios.

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

#250

Post by vkou »

zackmorris wrote: post #169
ENGNR wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-optimiz…

> 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.

Accounted for risk, the most lucrative form of trading is buying a Vanguard index fund, and sitting on it for 30 years.

Discounting risk, the most lucrative form of trading is flying to Vegas, and putting all your money on red.

Post reply on HN