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Coming from the investing world, I won’t say this is entirely true. If an ICO token is a genuine utility token, then it could have true value in the distributed

Coming from the investing world, I won’t say this is entirely true. If an ICO token is a genuine utility token, then it could have true value in the distributed network as far as I understand. If some company takes off where this utility token/security works, it could be a preferable form to a more common IPO/listed equity. I don’t think many companies fall under this domain, but for a few types of circumstances, the ICO model makes a lot of sense.

Moodles 8y ago
Can you provide any examples? I literally cannot think of a single company that needed to do an ICO for reasons other than to make quick money. I’m actually far more skeptical orf ICOs and adding blockchains to a company for no reason than bitcoin as a mere currency solution. We don’t need an ICO and a blockchain to track bananas in Laos.
- pmart123 8y ago
  I think the hard part is we haven't seen anything take off in reality yet. I've thought about one from a conceptual standpoint. In finance, many buy-side firms are collecting the same alternative data. This might be anything from consumer reviews to executive flight traffic data. So, could the buyside band together to create "Bloomberg"? More buyside firms now have data science teams, and with the explosion of alternative data, you could make the argument that the DIY is too taxing for one firm and the vendor is too slow at incorporating new datasets, and merely is the middleman. I don't think a hedge fund would give away its secret sauce, but much of this data eventually becomes table stakes. I've thought about whether a token could be created to provide an incentive for firms to build and share datasets. Tokens could be rewarded if a large number of other firms use/read from a particular dataset, or another firm could fork a dataset to clean dirty data and potentially tokens would flow to multiple firms in this instance. More firms using the network should lead to more data and a more valuable network/token.
  - pmart123 8y ago
    Maybe the closest real-world example I've heard so far is the Catalonian government using IPFS during an election, and how Filecoin could be used on top of IPFS to pay people to store data: https://medium.com/swlh/filecoin-and-ipfs-f5e84ae79afa https://medium.com/swlh/filecoin-and-ipfs-f5e84ae79afa
    - Moodles 8y ago
      Democratic elections don't need a blockchain and a coin.
  - Moodles 8y ago
    A blockchain and a coin doesn't make any sense there.

Moodles 8y ago

Can you provide any examples? I literally cannot think of a single company that needed to do an ICO for reasons other than to make quick money. I’m actually far more skeptical orf ICOs and adding blockchains to a company for no reason than bitcoin as a mere currency solution. We don’t need an ICO and a blockchain to track bananas in Laos.

pmart123 8y ago
I think the hard part is we haven't seen anything take off in reality yet. I've thought about one from a conceptual standpoint. In finance, many buy-side firms are collecting the same alternative data. This might be anything from consumer reviews to executive flight traffic data. So, could the buyside band together to create "Bloomberg"? More buyside firms now have data science teams, and with the explosion of alternative data, you could make the argument that the DIY is too taxing for one firm and the vendor is too slow at incorporating new datasets, and merely is the middleman. I don't think a hedge fund would give away its secret sauce, but much of this data eventually becomes table stakes. I've thought about whether a token could be created to provide an incentive for firms to build and share datasets. Tokens could be rewarded if a large number of other firms use/read from a particular dataset, or another firm could fork a dataset to clean dirty data and potentially tokens would flow to multiple firms in this instance. More firms using the network should lead to more data and a more valuable network/token.
- pmart123 8y ago
  Maybe the closest real-world example I've heard so far is the Catalonian government using IPFS during an election, and how Filecoin could be used on top of IPFS to pay people to store data: https://medium.com/swlh/filecoin-and-ipfs-f5e84ae79afa https://medium.com/swlh/filecoin-and-ipfs-f5e84ae79afa
  - Moodles 8y ago
    Democratic elections don't need a blockchain and a coin.
- Moodles 8y ago
  A blockchain and a coin doesn't make any sense there.