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Given that a bearish Bitcoin market sinks all cryptocurrency ships there's not a whole lot in the way of diversification benefit right now. ICOs appear to be m

Given that a bearish Bitcoin market sinks all cryptocurrency ships there's not a whole lot in the way of diversification benefit right now. ICOs appear to be more like Kickstarter with tokens. Some are in it for speculation and possible wealth, others really like the underlying product/game/app.* For example, French indie game 'Beyond the void' is integrated with an Ethereum blockchain. People fund the dev and receive tokens to use in the game. "Investors" win when the game is live. That their token can be changed for other currencies is secondary. People will get burned. Just see the scammy ICO ads on your Facebook feed. As with Kickstarter (with its 21% tech project success rate), diligence is required. But that any one of us can relatively easily exchange objects of value across hundreds of different projects is just about revolutionary. * Currencies like Monero and Litecoin are more truly speculative in that their value rests solely in perceived future utility and adoption.

zdkl 9y ago
> Currencies like Monero and Litecoin are more truly speculative in that their value rests solely in perceived future utility and adoption. You have bitcoin & litecoin reversed there friend. Compare organic looking transaction count and volume, adjusting for market cap.
psyc 9y ago
It's a mixed bag of legit projects, outright scams, and that grey-area of tech-bro charlatans. It's the last one that concerns me: CEO - Serial Blockchain Entrepreneur. In this for the long haul! CTO - "Crypto expert" == Business guy who understands blockchain superficially CFO - This guy is real, of course. Working code! = Fork Whitepaper = Buzzword language that just says their going to tokenize something. 'LegitCoin will tokenize the derivatives market for solar!' Create positive pump articles and videos for us for free tokens! My non-technical brother in law asks me every other day to look into one of these turds for him, and I have to deflate his bubble.
- factsaresacred 9y ago
  Spot on. Shitcoins, as they call them. At this very early stage of adoption, most people who are smart enough to figure out how to trade crypto should be smart enough to do some research before buying 1000 vaporware coins. As the doors open to the wider population, though, it's inevitable that hucksters will try to separate regular folk from their hard earned cash. The notion is reprehensible (and goes against the spirit of cryptocurrencies) so some regulation around accountability would not be unwelcome.

zdkl 9y ago

> Currencies like Monero and Litecoin are more truly speculative in that their value rests solely in perceived future utility and adoption. You have bitcoin & litecoin reversed there friend. Compare organic looking transaction count and volume, adjusting for market cap.

psyc 9y ago

It's a mixed bag of legit projects, outright scams, and that grey-area of tech-bro charlatans. It's the last one that concerns me: CEO - Serial Blockchain Entrepreneur. In this for the long haul! CTO - "Crypto expert" == Business guy who understands blockchain superficially CFO - This guy is real, of course. Working code! = Fork Whitepaper = Buzzword language that just says their going to tokenize something. 'LegitCoin will tokenize the derivatives market for solar!' Create positive pump articles and videos for us for free tokens! My non-technical brother in law asks me every other day to look into one of these turds for him, and I have to deflate his bubble.

factsaresacred 9y ago
Spot on. Shitcoins, as they call them. At this very early stage of adoption, most people who are smart enough to figure out how to trade crypto should be smart enough to do some research before buying 1000 vaporware coins. As the doors open to the wider population, though, it's inevitable that hucksters will try to separate regular folk from their hard earned cash. The notion is reprehensible (and goes against the spirit of cryptocurrencies) so some regulation around accountability would not be unwelcome.