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If someone has the knowledge to create a cryptocurrency in a weekend, in a garage, and have the foresight to operate from a friendly jurisdiction, and convinces

If someone has the knowledge to create a cryptocurrency in a weekend, in a garage, and have the foresight to operate from a friendly jurisdiction, and convinces people to buy it; then please let me know who that person is so I can invest in them. I'd love to get them out of a garage and into an office to see what they can really do.

hohenheim 9y ago
You took the comment literally. I think OP's point is still valid. There should be regulations around sophisticated scams.
richardknop 9y ago
I can create a new cryptocurrency over a weekend. It's not really that hard and most of these ICOs are just copycats with few parameter changes. Projects which actually develop something new are very few so kudos to them. Majority are just quick copies of existing code and rebranding.
- rothbardrand 9y ago
  No. 2013 was a lot of clones of bitcoin with a few parameters changed. Nowadays ICOs I'm seeing involve a lot of very hard work. The risk is that the teams may way under-estimate how much work it is (And I think that's what's going to cause them to fail) but they are a lot more ambitious than you are characterizing.
  - davidgerard 9y ago
    This doesn't appear to be an accurate description of the ICO market as it exists. The hardest work in ICOs is the marketing. At the back end, they literally put in the fine print that the thing you just bought is worthless. https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/icos-magic-beans-and-bubble-machines/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/icos-magic-beans-and-bu... Look up the EOS fine print. They took down the PDF, but I kept a spare: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/references/EOS%20Token%20Purchase%20Agreement%20-%20June%2022,%202017.pdf https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/references/EOS%20Token%... TODO this evening: write up a blog post on the ICO for (I am not making this up) synthetic rhino horn dick pills.
    - dingo_bat 9y ago
      It's literally saying "Give us your money and we will give you nothing in return"! WTF?!
      - davidgerard 9y ago
        And EOS has been one of the biggest ICOs. Also, despite the "no US citizens" bit, it's been advertising to the general public in the US (and in the UK). They are selling an ERC-20 magic bean to be traded on the bubble machines, and both buyers and sellers are going nod-nod wink-wink.
        prostoalex 9y ago
        Offtopic, but I just finished reading your book, and you, sir, are very eloquent.
  - richardknop 9y ago
    No it is still the same as Bitcoin clones in 2013. These days ICOs are cloning the same smart contract template and just making small edits to it. Most of the time they barely have any other code than just the slightly edited smart contract template and white paper which is also pretty much a copy paste with buzz words relevant to their niche. And based on that they are raising millions of dollars. Of course there are couple of exceptions of projects that actually seem to have some tech foundation (like Sia for example) but these are rare. Scam copy cats without any tech are majority of ICOs. Their reasoning is "we have an idea, let's raise millions of dollars and we will hire bunch of devs to write the software". Mostly founders are non technical "idea people" so I would doubt their ability to even know if their idea is feasible. Projects which start with strong technical foundations and don't try to raise money to build their tech (putting cart in front of the horse) are the solid ones. Projects which have no tech and raise money first, those are not likely to succeed imho.
  - prostoalex 9y ago
    > Nowadays ICOs I'm seeing involve a lot of very hard work. For example? What ICO idea is not a previously failed startup? Distributed file storage that's been built a few times and each time turned out to be painfully slow and impractical? An iOS and Android port of the wallet software? Yet another browser?
Nursie 9y ago
From an HN link just under two weeks ago - http://build-a-co.in/ http://build-a-co.in/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15077117 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15077117) You can build an altcoin in basically no time, on-demand using a web frontend. How hard the shell company piece is I have no idea. It really doesn't take a lot of talent or hard work to launch a coin from your garage these days.
- omarchowdhury 9y ago
  Right. Now convince me to buy the coins, that's the challenge.
  - Nursie 9y ago
    At the moment, the convincing doesn't seem to need to be very much, particularly where ICOs are involved. Copy someone else's white paper, post in a few forums with the word ICO splashed around liberally, and Bob's your uncle. I think that's kinda why people are welcoming this move - there's a lot of trash coins and trash ICOs with no hope of anything ever coming from them, with a relatively low input of time and effort. But because they offer trade-able tokens and some of them might take off, and at least some of them might get a hype-cycle and increase in value whether there's any underlying value or not, and it's all new, shiny, crypto-magic-money...
    - aleclarsoniv 9y ago
      I'm not sure this argument holds much weight. All investments have inherent risk. It's the job of the investors to assume how much risk they're taking. You cannot ban all digital currencies simply because a large amount of ICOs are poorly thought through, if not malicious. That would block a huge amount of innovation in a technology with huge potential to revolutionize many markets, if not all markets. It's the equivalent of banning startups to protect investors from stupid/malicious founders, which has obvious negative effects on the economy. And with crowdfunding making its way to startup investment, it's not a reach to compare the two.

hohenheim 9y ago

You took the comment literally. I think OP's point is still valid. There should be regulations around sophisticated scams.

richardknop 9y ago

I can create a new cryptocurrency over a weekend. It's not really that hard and most of these ICOs are just copycats with few parameter changes. Projects which actually develop something new are very few so kudos to them. Majority are just quick copies of existing code and rebranding.

rothbardrand 9y ago
No. 2013 was a lot of clones of bitcoin with a few parameters changed. Nowadays ICOs I'm seeing involve a lot of very hard work. The risk is that the teams may way under-estimate how much work it is (And I think that's what's going to cause them to fail) but they are a lot more ambitious than you are characterizing.
- davidgerard 9y ago
  This doesn't appear to be an accurate description of the ICO market as it exists. The hardest work in ICOs is the marketing. At the back end, they literally put in the fine print that the thing you just bought is worthless. https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/icos-magic-beans-and-bubble-machines/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/icos-magic-beans-and-bu... Look up the EOS fine print. They took down the PDF, but I kept a spare: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/references/EOS%20Token%20Purchase%20Agreement%20-%20June%2022,%202017.pdf https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/references/EOS%20Token%... TODO this evening: write up a blog post on the ICO for (I am not making this up) synthetic rhino horn dick pills.
  - dingo_bat 9y ago
    It's literally saying "Give us your money and we will give you nothing in return"! WTF?!
    - davidgerard 9y ago
      And EOS has been one of the biggest ICOs. Also, despite the "no US citizens" bit, it's been advertising to the general public in the US (and in the UK). They are selling an ERC-20 magic bean to be traded on the bubble machines, and both buyers and sellers are going nod-nod wink-wink.
      - prostoalex 9y ago
        Offtopic, but I just finished reading your book, and you, sir, are very eloquent.
- richardknop 9y ago
  No it is still the same as Bitcoin clones in 2013. These days ICOs are cloning the same smart contract template and just making small edits to it. Most of the time they barely have any other code than just the slightly edited smart contract template and white paper which is also pretty much a copy paste with buzz words relevant to their niche. And based on that they are raising millions of dollars. Of course there are couple of exceptions of projects that actually seem to have some tech foundation (like Sia for example) but these are rare. Scam copy cats without any tech are majority of ICOs. Their reasoning is "we have an idea, let's raise millions of dollars and we will hire bunch of devs to write the software". Mostly founders are non technical "idea people" so I would doubt their ability to even know if their idea is feasible. Projects which start with strong technical foundations and don't try to raise money to build their tech (putting cart in front of the horse) are the solid ones. Projects which have no tech and raise money first, those are not likely to succeed imho.
- prostoalex 9y ago
  > Nowadays ICOs I'm seeing involve a lot of very hard work. For example? What ICO idea is not a previously failed startup? Distributed file storage that's been built a few times and each time turned out to be painfully slow and impractical? An iOS and Android port of the wallet software? Yet another browser?

Nursie 9y ago

From an HN link just under two weeks ago - http://build-a-co.in/ http://build-a-co.in/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15077117 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15077117) You can build an altcoin in basically no time, on-demand using a web frontend. How hard the shell company piece is I have no idea. It really doesn't take a lot of talent or hard work to launch a coin from your garage these days.

omarchowdhury 9y ago
Right. Now convince me to buy the coins, that's the challenge.
- Nursie 9y ago
  At the moment, the convincing doesn't seem to need to be very much, particularly where ICOs are involved. Copy someone else's white paper, post in a few forums with the word ICO splashed around liberally, and Bob's your uncle. I think that's kinda why people are welcoming this move - there's a lot of trash coins and trash ICOs with no hope of anything ever coming from them, with a relatively low input of time and effort. But because they offer trade-able tokens and some of them might take off, and at least some of them might get a hype-cycle and increase in value whether there's any underlying value or not, and it's all new, shiny, crypto-magic-money...
  - aleclarsoniv 9y ago
    I'm not sure this argument holds much weight. All investments have inherent risk. It's the job of the investors to assume how much risk they're taking. You cannot ban all digital currencies simply because a large amount of ICOs are poorly thought through, if not malicious. That would block a huge amount of innovation in a technology with huge potential to revolutionize many markets, if not all markets. It's the equivalent of banning startups to protect investors from stupid/malicious founders, which has obvious negative effects on the economy. And with crowdfunding making its way to startup investment, it's not a reach to compare the two.