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This whole ICO affair will not end well. Here is a guy complaining about not being able to buy the BATs at the crowdsale: https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/com
by zby 9y ago
This whole ICO affair will not end well. Here is a guy complaining about not being able to buy the BATs at the crowdsale: https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/6efsc8/bat_ico_whalesale_completely_against_the_ethos_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/6efsc8/bat_ico_w... - this is a serious gold rush attitude. Those people don't seem to understand that most (9 for 10 some say) startups fail.
And the tokens they are buying is just a promise - they don't bind the company to do any thing. The company promises to use the BAT token in their future monetization model - but in fact they can pivot at any point, like many (if not most) startup do, and do something else, or maybe even do yet another ICO with another token.
And that is on top of all the problems with crowdfunding - where even if there is a legal binding, and maybe a fractionary ownership - without all the regulations that were invented to protect the investors - the founders/executives still can do anything with the money they received from the funding event: https://medium.com/@zby/the-problem-with-crowdfunding-81b53f963387 https://medium.com/@zby/the-problem-with-crowdfunding-81b53f...
Update: Even if now most ICO creators are honest - then soon they'll be crowded out by scammers, because honest funders will find other ways to fund their starups - but for scammers it will never be easier than with ICOs.
- altoz 9y agoI wrote a similar article on the difference between ICOs and VC investment. In short, the investor gets much less in an ICO: https://medium.com/p/why-icos-are-very-different-than-seed-capital-a59e4c78b84a https://medium.com/p/why-icos-are-very-different-than-seed-c...
- mck- 9y agoGreat primer on ICOs - thanks for enlightening me :)
- beager 9y agoFrom the linked reddit thread: > This is totally against the spirit and ethos of what cryptocurrency stands for. What exactly is the spirit or ethos of cryptocurrency? I thought the big selling point is that there is no spirit, no ethos, no regulation. Folks who are disappointed that a cryptocurrency investing channel has no safeguards against exploitation can't have it both ways.
- zby 9y agoYeah - I have been scratching my head ever since I read this.
- cslarson 9y agoFor many, even most, ICOs, actually raising the money is only part of the potential benefit. The other benefit is to bootstrap a network of users and promotors. In those terms maybe BAT failed. They could have won over 10s of thousands of users.