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It's pretty clear what's happening. Ethereum (ETH) is rising because people are buying into initial coin offerings (ICOs). They aren't holding ETH, so they don'
by pdog 9y ago
It's pretty clear what's happening. Ethereum (ETH) is rising because people are buying into initial coin offerings (ICOs). They aren't holding ETH, so they don't care about the price of ETH rising in terms of Bitcoin (BTC) or dollars. The ICOs are the significant holders of ETH. They haven't sold their ETH because 1) the price of ETH is still rising rapidly, 2) they don't yet need to access the funds for development, and 3) smart contracts connected to token sales usually allocate ETH for future use. Eventually, ICOs will begin to sell or distribute their ETH to fund the development of their projects.
- JohnJamesRambo 9y agoI don't think that is true at all. Most people can't even get in on the ICOs.
- mtgx 9y agoIt's not about "most people," it's about "most cash." The "whales" are buying ICOs left and right, and dumping their Bitcoin/other altcoins. That's the main reason for ETH's rise. Eventually some of these ICOs will prove to be scams, or will get hacked with catastrophic results, and ETH's price will fall again. It doesn't necessarily mean it won't rise back-up again, but by then we'll just have to see if ETH is still a top 2 coin to get.
- JohnJamesRambo 9y agoOk show me data on what percent of the market cap is from ICOs. Bancor's recent debacle raised 150 million and that is the largest ICO yet. Ethereum has a 36 billion market cap as far as I know.
- krrrh 9y agoIt's a question of liquidity, not of "market cap".
- koolba 9y ago> Eventually some of these ICOs will prove to be scams, or will get hacked with catastrophic results, and ETH's price will fall again. s/some/most/
- colecut 9y agoThat's because they sell out so quickly. ICOs can earn tens of millions in seconds. This seems like a plausible theory to me.
- DiNovi 9y agoICOs lock away ether, which makes the price rise - but there are 5x the amount of ether than BTC, so I am skeptical this is even a large % of the reason
- komaromy 9y agoWhat % of all ETH is currently held in ICO accounts?
- azeirah 9y agoThe fun thing is indeed that neither the Ethereum optimists nor the sceptics have concrete numbers to back up their statements. The skepticism is healthy, the optimism interesting, the discussion unfortunately remains fairly immature, on both sides. I hope we'll get more academic and professional insight soon.
- pdog 9y agoThere are approximately 92 million ETH outstanding. It's much harder to measure market liquidity on the various exchanges and over-the-counter (OTC) markets. With hundreds of ICOs popping up, it's difficult to say what impact they have on the market. Bancor raised approximately 400,000 ETH in their recent ICO, or 0.4% of all ETH outstanding, and the BAT sale raised 156,250 ETH. Prior to the attack, the DAO had attracted over 11 million ETH, or nearly 14% of all ETH outstanding at the time.
- komaromy 9y agoHundreds? I'd struggle to name twenty and I consider myself reasonably knowledgeable about the scene.