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Easiest Path to Riches on the Web? An Initial Coin Offering

nytimes.com

51–60 of 310 posts

Re: Easiest Path to Riches on the Web? An Initial Coin Offering

#51
post #10

Does anyone think these cryptocoins will hold value during, in, and through the next recession?

If you go to https://coinmarketcap.com/ you will see they have info on over 600 individual crypto currencies. 99% of them are going to be worthless long term. Best case scenario a handful of them survive. I'd be extremely skeptical of any coin that distributes coins via an ICO or "pre-sale" instead of via competitive mining like Bitcoin.

Re: Easiest Path to Riches on the Web? An Initial Coin Offering

#52

These crypto coin bubbles can't pop soon enough.

Bubbles are inevitable. If you want to see a great historical example, read up on the South Sea Company of the 18th century. The charlatans are the same throughout time, just varying their methods slightly

Re: Easiest Path to Riches on the Web? An Initial Coin Offering

#53

I would like to make an appeal to the YC community: please reach out and help guide those involved in this rapidly advancing phenomenon. There is a huge amount of instantly-deployable capital in Ethereum and Bitcoin, held by individuals now seeking ways to put it to work. Many technologists will naturally make use of this energy, but so will BS artists and people under the influence of hubris. I am making this appeal…

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Re: Easiest Path to Riches on the Web? An Initial Coin Offering

#54
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blockchain is perhaps the most economically important invention of the last 500 years. Right now the whole space is worth less than $100B, and it's going to be worth tens or hundreds of trillions of dollars. Obviously valuations have far outpaced the present usefulness of these technologies, but because the pie is so enormous it would be irrational not to overpay. Right now prices are too out-of-whack with reality so…

It might be #3 behind the transistor and the internal combustion engine.

What's valuable isn't the transistor and the internal combustion engine themselves per say, but rather the new networks they enable: rail, roads, informations, etc.

Blockchain is also a new network, and the math for analyzing its value is the same as the math for analyzing the value of any other network. In this case I would say that it's going to be the most valuable new network since the rise of global shipping during the age of sail.

Re: Easiest Path to Riches on the Web? An Initial Coin Offering

#55
Wait until amazon offers its own coin...that is when the mainstream will happen and if these much less know are able to pull this valuation the legitimacy and hype will many x when amazon does it. They have already tested the waters with https://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1001166401

Re: Easiest Path to Riches on the Web? An Initial Coin Offering

#56
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have "speculative vendor financing" - normally in the form of OTC stocks, i.e. pink sheets. This seems like an even less regulated way of trading pink sheets, except funded by a bunch of software people with a lot of disposable income instead of some mob guys in a boiler room in New Jersey.

The whole point of the blockchain is that you can't forge currency without controlling 50%+ of the computing power in the network.

Sure... and 3 guys in China control 50%+ of the Bitcoin network, and ETH mining will eventually centralize as well. What's your point? I'd rather have Janet Yellen controlling my currency than Jihan Wu/Barry Silbert/Brian Armstrong.

Re: Easiest Path to Riches on the Web? An Initial Coin Offering

#57

I'm sorry but this is so absurd. They are doing the equivalent of printing their own monopoly money in the garage and then selling it for real currency... dollars.

Blockchain is perhaps the most economically important invention of the last 500 years. Right now the whole space is worth less than $100B, and it's going to be worth tens or hundreds of trillions of dollars. Obviously valuations have far outpaced the present usefulness of these technologies, but because the pie is so enormous it would be irrational not to overpay. Right now prices are too out-of-whack with reality so…

Totally agree that people on HN have become the incumbents who are scared of change and radically new technologies.

Re: Easiest Path to Riches on the Web? An Initial Coin Offering

#58
I have a fetish for watching complicated court cases play through. What you realize is a judge in a courtroom has a lot of power. They can take your money, freedom or even kids. However, if I had few hundred thousand in Ethereum encrypted placed into a few random anonymous git hub repros, well, the government can't take it. It is truly yours. No one can take it. That must be horrifying proposition for (some) governments - the inability to control people.

Re: Easiest Path to Riches on the Web? An Initial Coin Offering

#59
post #42

200 years ago in the U.S. regional banks printed their own currency. The constitution does not create a common US currency, although we have been operating as if it does. Will a non-nation state be able to generate enough credibility to run their own currency that lasts a lifetime? I don't know be I think it's interesting to watch. And if they do, it may force central banks into a corner by limiting their ability to…

The British East India Company was able to do this; they issued their own currency at various times. I'm not sure we'll ever see a company with that kind of temporal power again, though.
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