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Very few ICOs do right by investors. We're one of the few offering equity positions and dividends. The law conveniently provides an excuse to them, see Tezos ev

Very few ICOs do right by investors. We're one of the few offering equity positions and dividends. The law conveniently provides an excuse to them, see Tezos even outright calling it a donation! As an EJC the laws don't apply in the same way, so we directly offer shares in our startup. Few ICOs are willing to do the ethical thing because they're just cash grabs. Hire a small team to try to make your whitepaper vision into code. If it fails and you were not too far fetch in using company funds, nothing bad will happen to you. It's disgusting.

velcro 9y ago
You could say the same thing about "traditional" startups though - investors often invest just based on the combination of the idea, founders/team and maybe an early prototype. If the startup fails - nothing "bad" will happen to you either. Shares in a startup thats not publicly tradable don't really offer you that much security. Unless you've committed fraud - but - I've been following the ICO market closely for the past 6 months and I can't remember any of the larger ICOs that were outright scams. Many people and smaller projects/websites will of course try to scam you online - but you should always do your own research and due diligence still applies. I'm not sure I'd agree that "very few ICOs do right by their investors". It depends what you mean - there have been many successful projects out there that made people money. But if you mean "flipping" i.e. buying into a ICO just to try and sell it quickly for profit - that seems more difficult these days. But it might also be due to the current BTC rally. ICOs are of course still in wild west territory as far as regulations go - there is a reason why Tezos calls it a donation. They don't want the regulatory hurdle. In fact almost all ICOs these days force you to accept that tokens are not shares in the company and don't "officially" entitle you to anything.
- nsomaru 9y ago
  Have you compiled your thoughts on ICOs?
  - velcro 9y ago
    No. I was doing a lot of research into ICOs over the summer, but its incredibly time consuming and there are so many now. I spend too much time behind the screen as it - need to live in the "real" world every once in a while - I'm trying to quit :) Will try putting my money on autopilot/fund for a while.
- jmkni 9y ago
  There's an ICO scam tracker here - https://etherscamdb.info/scams/ https://etherscamdb.info/scams/ There seems to have been quite a few.
  - velcro 9y ago
    Note that this is a database of fake phishing websites that impersonate legit projects (and try to steal your money) - its not a database of scamy ICOs. As mentioned - there are certainly those too - but I don't remember any with bigger/reputable projects lately.

velcro 9y ago

You could say the same thing about "traditional" startups though - investors often invest just based on the combination of the idea, founders/team and maybe an early prototype. If the startup fails - nothing "bad" will happen to you either. Shares in a startup thats not publicly tradable don't really offer you that much security. Unless you've committed fraud - but - I've been following the ICO market closely for the past 6 months and I can't remember any of the larger ICOs that were outright scams. Many people and smaller projects/websites will of course try to scam you online - but you should always do your own research and due diligence still applies. I'm not sure I'd agree that "very few ICOs do right by their investors". It depends what you mean - there have been many successful projects out there that made people money. But if you mean "flipping" i.e. buying into a ICO just to try and sell it quickly for profit - that seems more difficult these days. But it might also be due to the current BTC rally. ICOs are of course still in wild west territory as far as regulations go - there is a reason why Tezos calls it a donation. They don't want the regulatory hurdle. In fact almost all ICOs these days force you to accept that tokens are not shares in the company and don't "officially" entitle you to anything.

nsomaru 9y ago
Have you compiled your thoughts on ICOs?
- velcro 9y ago
  No. I was doing a lot of research into ICOs over the summer, but its incredibly time consuming and there are so many now. I spend too much time behind the screen as it - need to live in the "real" world every once in a while - I'm trying to quit :) Will try putting my money on autopilot/fund for a while.
jmkni 9y ago
There's an ICO scam tracker here - https://etherscamdb.info/scams/ https://etherscamdb.info/scams/ There seems to have been quite a few.
- velcro 9y ago
  Note that this is a database of fake phishing websites that impersonate legit projects (and try to steal your money) - its not a database of scamy ICOs. As mentioned - there are certainly those too - but I don't remember any with bigger/reputable projects lately.