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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

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>It's weird because people compare it to the early days of the Internet... but the early Internet was useful from its beginning Exactly why so much wealth was created by the Internet boom. The wealth came from utility that already existed, just needed to be harnessed to its fullest potential. ICO scams are based on generating wealth first and hoping that utility follows at some undetermined time in the future. It's…

Snake oil is actually very useful: https://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/oils/snake-oil.... My superpower: Taking things literally. Still more useful than the last 10 ICOs. And my bad jokes aren't as bad for the environment. 10k joke-coins pre-ICO and 2 downvotes for that one for me! We had three innovative ideas in the financial sector - certificate of debt, compounded interest and book money. And now the fou…

The idea that the topical application of omega-3 fatty acids has some benefit other than psychological is definitely snake oil.

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

#272
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's weird because people compare it to the early days of the Internet... but the early Internet was useful from its beginning That really depends on where you put 'beginning'. 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). Also, just like the internet wasn't. > Now, all we see is rampant fraud and a complete d…

> That really depends on where you put 'beginning'. It does not. In 1995 the Internet was useful for 30m people. In 1985 it was useful for 30,000. Email was better than paper mail from the get-go. Networked file transfer was way better than mailing magtapes or CDs. Remote terminal connections were way better than driving or doing long-distance dialup. The Internet was not the wonder it is today, but from very early o…

XML is useful, if cumbersome. Blockchains have not shown themselves to be useful for anything at scale.

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

#273
post #150
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> People use cryptocurrency too. For value transfer, and to a more limited extent, for dapps like Augur. Soooo, buying drugs and illegal gambling? Sure, I'll give you that one. My argument rephrased: "Because cryptocurrency investors have repeatedly made claims that don't pan out, we can be reasonably skeptical and concerned about their energy consumption until they actually fix it or at the very least provide peer-r…

> Soooo, buying drugs and illegal gambling? Sure, I'll give you that one.

Well, why is this so easy for you to brush aside?

If indeed blockchain tech can successfully subvert bad public policy, isn't that pretty remarkable in its own right?

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

#274
post #213

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Is the company required to buy back the coins? I’m not sure I get the point of an ICO. It seems like a company issuing monopoly money. It even seems like this would have been possible before crypto—literally just Monopoly money to people and let them trade amongst themselves. I guess Monopoly money is easy to duplicate… but so is crypto in a way because you can just start your own currency that uses the same block ch…

Do you understand the concept of a stock share? Well, just remove the company, the product, and the regulation, and that's an ICO. The issuer of the coins/tokens do not have to buy anything back. The idea is that they will increase in value and function, and others will want to buy them from you. It goes like this: 1. "RichCoin" is created and the creators begin selling them at 5,000 Richcoins for 1 Bitcoin. Ads are…

> 6. The creators of RichCoin, who long ago converted their 1000 Bitcoins to $5,000,000 USD, move to a private island and never work again.

Is it that easy to turn BTC to cash? I heard most exchanges have no way to withdraw real dollars.

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

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>It's weird because people compare it to the early days of the Internet... but the early Internet was useful from its beginning Exactly why so much wealth was created by the Internet boom. The wealth came from utility that already existed, just needed to be harnessed to its fullest potential. ICO scams are based on generating wealth first and hoping that utility follows at some undetermined time in the future. It's…

Snake oil is actually very useful: https://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/oils/snake-oil.... My superpower: Taking things literally. Still more useful than the last 10 ICOs. And my bad jokes aren't as bad for the environment. 10k joke-coins pre-ICO and 2 downvotes for that one for me! We had three innovative ideas in the financial sector - certificate of debt, compounded interest and book money. And now the fou…

When it comes to health benefits, I'm not likely to click a link to `organicfacts.net` and assume it's backed with scientific evidence.

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

#276
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

These are open questions. And it may be that blockchain will be an underlying infrastructure that is mostly used by large, centralized entities to settle between each other. But if that's the equilibrium into which we settle, individuals will still have the option to control their own assets in a true sense, even if most people choose not to.

it would be really cool to be able to verify the ownership of any property on earth by checking Bitcoin or Eth block chain, but there would have to be a way to have authority unanimously change the record.

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

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You could (and people do) send gift cards, or pre-paid debit cards. These have the added benefit of being accepted in stores, etc, whereas cryptocurrencies... not really?

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

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's misrepresenting what I said... the amount of communication pre-ICO will be a lot more than post-ICO, but not nothing.

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

#280
post #215

The article gleefully ignores the positive side of these investments documented by the authors of the study: >We find evidence of significant ICO underpricing, with average returns of 179% from the ICO price to the first day’s opening market price, over a holding period that averages just 16 days. Even after imputing returns of -100% to ICOs that don’t list their tokens within 60 days and adjusting for the returns of…

which make it not healthy. old time miners do not expect instant return mining coins, and today ico investors want out fast
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