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I'm so surprised that smart contracts aren't being used to release the funds over some set of time, with the ability for community to vote to block it if they f

I'm so surprised that smart contracts aren't being used to release the funds over some set of time, with the ability for community to vote to block it if they feel team has stalled. Nobody needs $20 or $50m on day 1.

deleted 8y ago
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MBCook 8y ago
Why would anyone running an ICO agree to that? Clearly the current system ‘works’. They get money, no accountability, and everyone just moves on. No wonder crypto-currencies enjoy such a positive image among the ‘haters’ and ‘doubters’. Because they keep earning it.
- shawn 8y ago
  Once ICO scams stop working, the world will move towards traditional models. Crypto is out there, and it's not going anywhere. Eventually someone will realize that the smarter move is to create sustainable value over time.
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    > Eventually someone will realize that the smarter move is to create sustainable value over time. Most ICO's - if not all of them - are powered by the greater fool theory, sustainable value isn't really on the table. I see value in the blockchain and some in BTC (but not as much as others apparently do), but the whole ICO concept seems to be just a way to transfer wealth from greedy suckers to even greedier suckers.
    - shawn 8y ago
      One promising example is SpankChain. It's a cryptocurrency specifically designed for the porn market. Traditionally, it's hard to make money in porn due to fraud and chargebacks. Most payment processors also won't touch you. But crypto has no chargebacks, so it's a natural fit. One could argue that if you have to dip down to the level of porn just to find some value, ICOs are worth dismissing. But I would say that it's a decent example of the future potential.
      - detaro 8y ago
        If it is just payments, why have a special cryptocurrency? Or does it do something more clever?
        shawn 8y ago
        A good question. And the answer is a bit surprising: community. If you search for spankchain, you'll likely end up on their discord. There are friendly people to help answer your questions and set you up. It's the same advantage YC has: by being a meta-layer, you end up attracting everyone who's trying to do anything in the space, rather than one specific aspect. Eventually, the network effects are most of the value.
      - jacquesm 8y ago
        > Traditionally, it's hard to make money in porn due to fraud and chargebacks. Is that so? Tell me more...
        shawn 8y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17432801 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17432801 was what got me thinking along these lines. If CCBill has a stranglehold on the porn payment processing industry, crypto is a natural threat to them. And that implies crypto has real power to shake up old models.
      - madamelic 8y ago
        >One could argue that if you have to dip down to the level of porn just to find some value, ICOs are worth dismissing One could also argue that when porn starts adopting a technology, you should adopt it too because that tech is what is going to win. Porn has consistently chosen the winners and any tech that discourages or disallows porn's involvement loses.
        notahacker 8y ago
        Contrary to popular belief, porn was available on Betamax... More to the point is there any evidence of the mainstream porn user actually adopting SpankChain (or any of the other supposed "blockchains for porn") as opposed to ICO profiteers adopting pornography as a relatively plausible potential future business model to sell unnecessary tokens at an implausibly high value? Just had a look at the company page of the service. The CEO is a "decentralization laser gun" who boasts about how much money he raised in other ICOs (hmmm...) as well as his favourite computer games. In lieu of an actual testimonial, we get him in blockquote saying "we've honestly got the best team ever". Apparently this is one of the more promising ICOs and yet it's making me feel the SEC parody ICO site was a bit mild...
    - arisAlexis 8y ago
      why would a company trying to build a product be a greater fool example? you mean all startups that fail at very high rates are also that?
      - jacquesm 8y ago
        > why would a company trying to build a product be a greater fool example? I think you sort of missed the point. > you mean all startups that fail at very high rates are also that? No, I did not mean that.
  - Analemma_ 8y ago
    The market for lemons argument (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons) suggests this is not true. When a sufficiently large percentage of the market is fraudulent (and in the ICO space it's damn close to 100%), buyers will demand a price premium to compensate for their risk to the point where honest actors can't participate profitably. That isn't happening yet because we're still in the tulip mania phase, but eventually people will want such high returns for the absurd amount of risk in the crypto space that no one will bother.
asdsa5325 8y ago
I'm not surprised. ICO investors are crazy and ignorant. If they thought straight, they wouldn't invest at all.
- vkou 8y ago
  Many of them are investing because there is money to be made over the course of a pump and dump. They don't actually want any pre-order tokens that entitle them to 2 GB of storage on a distributed crypto-file-system, or whatever the ICO promises. Think ticket scalping, except that the tickets are for a concert that may or may not happen. (Because the band hasn't actually written any songs, found a drummer, rehearsed anything, rented a venue, or even bought any instruments.)
- mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
  Crazy but make a ton on deals from pre-sale.
s73v3r_ 8y ago
Why would anyone issuing an ICO want this? Even if you're not a scammer, why would you want the community to be able to block your funding due to unforeseen circumstances?
barbegal 8y ago
Smart contracts don't work because they require all the funds to be held in escrow. So if I see the need to release $50 million then I need to hold that in escrow and during that time I can't use the capital for other purposes.
jerguismi 8y ago
Why wouldn't you just do several rounds? No ned to commit that money. These "entrepreneurs" are just raising as much as they can. And because there is so much dumb money in crypto, they raise a lot.
kapurs151 8y ago
This exact idea is actually something Vitalik (founder of Ethereum) has proposed recently: https://ethresear.ch/t/explanation-of-daicos/465 https://ethresear.ch/t/explanation-of-daicos/465 It is important to remember that what we are seeing is a v1 of the ICO model - it is likely that future versions will be able to implement more controls and governance mechanisms like the kind you described.
fabiandesimone 8y ago
There's a team in Spain that's doing exactly this: https://cgs.vote/ https://cgs.vote/

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

MBCook 8y ago

Why would anyone running an ICO agree to that? Clearly the current system ‘works’. They get money, no accountability, and everyone just moves on. No wonder crypto-currencies enjoy such a positive image among the ‘haters’ and ‘doubters’. Because they keep earning it.

shawn 8y ago
Once ICO scams stop working, the world will move towards traditional models. Crypto is out there, and it's not going anywhere. Eventually someone will realize that the smarter move is to create sustainable value over time.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  > Eventually someone will realize that the smarter move is to create sustainable value over time. Most ICO's - if not all of them - are powered by the greater fool theory, sustainable value isn't really on the table. I see value in the blockchain and some in BTC (but not as much as others apparently do), but the whole ICO concept seems to be just a way to transfer wealth from greedy suckers to even greedier suckers.
  - shawn 8y ago
    One promising example is SpankChain. It's a cryptocurrency specifically designed for the porn market. Traditionally, it's hard to make money in porn due to fraud and chargebacks. Most payment processors also won't touch you. But crypto has no chargebacks, so it's a natural fit. One could argue that if you have to dip down to the level of porn just to find some value, ICOs are worth dismissing. But I would say that it's a decent example of the future potential.
    - detaro 8y ago
      If it is just payments, why have a special cryptocurrency? Or does it do something more clever?
      - shawn 8y ago
        A good question. And the answer is a bit surprising: community. If you search for spankchain, you'll likely end up on their discord. There are friendly people to help answer your questions and set you up. It's the same advantage YC has: by being a meta-layer, you end up attracting everyone who's trying to do anything in the space, rather than one specific aspect. Eventually, the network effects are most of the value.
    - jacquesm 8y ago
      > Traditionally, it's hard to make money in porn due to fraud and chargebacks. Is that so? Tell me more...
      - shawn 8y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17432801 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17432801 was what got me thinking along these lines. If CCBill has a stranglehold on the porn payment processing industry, crypto is a natural threat to them. And that implies crypto has real power to shake up old models.
    - madamelic 8y ago
      >One could argue that if you have to dip down to the level of porn just to find some value, ICOs are worth dismissing One could also argue that when porn starts adopting a technology, you should adopt it too because that tech is what is going to win. Porn has consistently chosen the winners and any tech that discourages or disallows porn's involvement loses.
      - notahacker 8y ago
        Contrary to popular belief, porn was available on Betamax... More to the point is there any evidence of the mainstream porn user actually adopting SpankChain (or any of the other supposed "blockchains for porn") as opposed to ICO profiteers adopting pornography as a relatively plausible potential future business model to sell unnecessary tokens at an implausibly high value? Just had a look at the company page of the service. The CEO is a "decentralization laser gun" who boasts about how much money he raised in other ICOs (hmmm...) as well as his favourite computer games. In lieu of an actual testimonial, we get him in blockquote saying "we've honestly got the best team ever". Apparently this is one of the more promising ICOs and yet it's making me feel the SEC parody ICO site was a bit mild...
  - arisAlexis 8y ago
    why would a company trying to build a product be a greater fool example? you mean all startups that fail at very high rates are also that?
    - jacquesm 8y ago
      > why would a company trying to build a product be a greater fool example? I think you sort of missed the point. > you mean all startups that fail at very high rates are also that? No, I did not mean that.
- Analemma_ 8y ago
  The market for lemons argument (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons) suggests this is not true. When a sufficiently large percentage of the market is fraudulent (and in the ICO space it's damn close to 100%), buyers will demand a price premium to compensate for their risk to the point where honest actors can't participate profitably. That isn't happening yet because we're still in the tulip mania phase, but eventually people will want such high returns for the absurd amount of risk in the crypto space that no one will bother.

asdsa5325 8y ago

I'm not surprised. ICO investors are crazy and ignorant. If they thought straight, they wouldn't invest at all.

vkou 8y ago
Many of them are investing because there is money to be made over the course of a pump and dump. They don't actually want any pre-order tokens that entitle them to 2 GB of storage on a distributed crypto-file-system, or whatever the ICO promises. Think ticket scalping, except that the tickets are for a concert that may or may not happen. (Because the band hasn't actually written any songs, found a drummer, rehearsed anything, rented a venue, or even bought any instruments.)
mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
Crazy but make a ton on deals from pre-sale.

s73v3r_ 8y ago

Why would anyone issuing an ICO want this? Even if you're not a scammer, why would you want the community to be able to block your funding due to unforeseen circumstances?

barbegal 8y ago

Smart contracts don't work because they require all the funds to be held in escrow. So if I see the need to release $50 million then I need to hold that in escrow and during that time I can't use the capital for other purposes.

jerguismi 8y ago

Why wouldn't you just do several rounds? No ned to commit that money. These "entrepreneurs" are just raising as much as they can. And because there is so much dumb money in crypto, they raise a lot.

kapurs151 8y ago

This exact idea is actually something Vitalik (founder of Ethereum) has proposed recently: https://ethresear.ch/t/explanation-of-daicos/465 https://ethresear.ch/t/explanation-of-daicos/465 It is important to remember that what we are seeing is a v1 of the ICO model - it is likely that future versions will be able to implement more controls and governance mechanisms like the kind you described.

fabiandesimone 8y ago

There's a team in Spain that's doing exactly this: https://cgs.vote/ https://cgs.vote/