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Not many ICOs led to efficient product development, but most of them were also not scams. Most teams that ICOed had a profile similar to early stage tech startu

by woah 7y ago

Not many ICOs led to efficient product development, but most of them were also not scams. Most teams that ICOed had a profile similar to early stage tech startups. The outcome was usually what you’d expect if you gave a bunch of inexperienced seed stage companies series B-sized piles of cash. They didn’t have the urgency developed by running on a shoestring in an earlier stage of the company and they didn’t have the direction of having actual users, so they generally have been puttering along and taking their sweet time on the tech. That being said, most ICOs were not put together by scammers, and many of them have made an honest effort to produced technically advance systems that are often not useful in the real world. The fact that this author needs to insist that every single ICO was totally fake and has stock photography portraits of fake developers shows that he has an axe to grind and casts doubt on the article.

geraldbauer 7y ago
To quote from an academic study and the commentary from a world-class economist from the article titled "Initial Coin Scams" it reads "There are now nearly 1,600 cryptocurrencies, and the number continues to rise. It is time to start recognizing their issuers' utopian rhetoric for what it is: self-serving nonsense meant to separate credulous investors from their hard-earned savings. [..] 81% of ICOs are scams created by con artists, charlatans, and swindlers looking to take your money and run." [1] [1]: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ico-cryptocurrency-scams-by-nouriel-roubini-2018-05 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ico-cryptocurre... About the author David Gerard - The Book "Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain" [2] is an unmatched gem in a sea of 24-hour non-sense crytpo promotion. Ironically another voice of reason is "pseudonymous" Trolly McTrollface [3] [2]: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/table-of-contents/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/table-of-contents/ [3]: https://bitsblocks.github.io/bitcoin-maximalist https://bitsblocks.github.io/bitcoin-maximalist
empath75 7y ago
Name one single ico that produced a useful product.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- thehazard 7y ago
  MakerDAO.
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    A useful product. It’s a stablecoin. Your wallet is full of them already.
    - thehazard 7y ago
      ...a stablecoin not tied to any major fiat currency with over $600MM of value locked in the contract. That's an extremely successful product by any definition.
      - arcticbull 7y ago
        value locked inside is not a metric of success. By that metric Bank of America is thousands of times more successful, with 1.081 trillion dollars locked in.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        thehazard 7y ago
        Does Bank of America have a stablecoin not tied to any major fiat currency with over $600MM of value locked in the contract? (Hint: no, no they do not.)
    - seibelj 7y ago
      You will just move the goalposts forever, your mind is closed.
      - 7y ago
DyslexicAtheist 7y ago
I remember ca 2015-2018 receiving invites from blockchain/coin peddlers on nearly daily basis on LinkedIn. This was then followed with an email pitch for an ICO or some other bull. I researched those companies where I could make a connection between ownership of the company, its shareholders and their location. If they happened to be in Europe I would thank them for their message and billed them at 100,-- for 1 hrs of administrative effort dealing with their unsolicited message[1]. I attached the smtp headers of the message in the appendix of the invoice and informed them that what they're doing is illegal under the upcoming GDPR. All EU based entities paid except 2, which I sued and won. Despite also reporting every incident to Mailchimp, MC did nothing to shut any of them down. I earned around ~400-500/month until I got bored (and exhausted) and also too busy with other things. Also I stopped getting such messages after GDPR came into effect. [1] 1 hr seemed a fair price since it was roughly the time I spent on recon work to find the CEO's behind these structures. edit: some of my favorite "anti-coin-BS" warriors were @cybergibbons on Twitter (security researcher Andrew Tierney from PentestPartners) and Mathew D. Green (among others). They spent a tremendous amount of time trying to educate these kids about the problems in their assumptions. IOTA was on top of this list of BS-coins since they literally insisted that a hash-function does NOT need to be collision resistant (e.g. after their Kerl-function was exposed for this by the crypto-community).
- dudhehhe 7y ago
  Entitlement level checks out, European confirmed.
nullc 7y ago
> but most of them were also not scams [...] most ICOs were not put together by scammers, and many of them have made an honest effort to produced technically advance systems As someone who's had the misfortune of finding myself at events offstage around many famous practitioners in this space... I cannot say I agree. It's my experience that only a small minority appear to have remotely credible beliefs in their prospects. The best I could say is that many appear to be indifferent to the prospects of success for their headline venture, but extremely interested and invested in their success in collecting investments from unsophisticated buyers. Many I've witnessed are outright contemptuous towards the victims that buy into their offerings. You can see this contempt reflected in the contractual terms of the ICO offerings which go out of their way to make sure that absolutely nothing of value is transferred with the sale of the token. You'd have to be either an idiot or simply ignorant of the terms to accept them in virtually every ICO.

by woah 7y ago

geraldbauer 7y ago

To quote from an academic study and the commentary from a world-class economist from the article titled "Initial Coin Scams" it reads "There are now nearly 1,600 cryptocurrencies, and the number continues to rise. It is time to start recognizing their issuers' utopian rhetoric for what it is: self-serving nonsense meant to separate credulous investors from their hard-earned savings. [..] 81% of ICOs are scams created by con artists, charlatans, and swindlers looking to take your money and run." [1] [1]: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ico-cryptocurrency-scams-by-nouriel-roubini-2018-05 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ico-cryptocurre... About the author David Gerard - The Book "Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain" [2] is an unmatched gem in a sea of 24-hour non-sense crytpo promotion. Ironically another voice of reason is "pseudonymous" Trolly McTrollface [3] [2]: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/table-of-contents/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/table-of-contents/ [3]: https://bitsblocks.github.io/bitcoin-maximalist https://bitsblocks.github.io/bitcoin-maximalist

empath75 7y ago

Name one single ico that produced a useful product.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
thehazard 7y ago
MakerDAO.
- arcticbull 7y ago
  A useful product. It’s a stablecoin. Your wallet is full of them already.
  - thehazard 7y ago
    ...a stablecoin not tied to any major fiat currency with over $600MM of value locked in the contract. That's an extremely successful product by any definition.
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      value locked inside is not a metric of success. By that metric Bank of America is thousands of times more successful, with 1.081 trillion dollars locked in.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - thehazard 7y ago
        Does Bank of America have a stablecoin not tied to any major fiat currency with over $600MM of value locked in the contract? (Hint: no, no they do not.)
  - seibelj 7y ago
    You will just move the goalposts forever, your mind is closed.
    - 7y ago

DyslexicAtheist 7y ago

I remember ca 2015-2018 receiving invites from blockchain/coin peddlers on nearly daily basis on LinkedIn. This was then followed with an email pitch for an ICO or some other bull. I researched those companies where I could make a connection between ownership of the company, its shareholders and their location. If they happened to be in Europe I would thank them for their message and billed them at 100,-- for 1 hrs of administrative effort dealing with their unsolicited message[1]. I attached the smtp headers of the message in the appendix of the invoice and informed them that what they're doing is illegal under the upcoming GDPR. All EU based entities paid except 2, which I sued and won. Despite also reporting every incident to Mailchimp, MC did nothing to shut any of them down. I earned around ~400-500/month until I got bored (and exhausted) and also too busy with other things. Also I stopped getting such messages after GDPR came into effect. [1] 1 hr seemed a fair price since it was roughly the time I spent on recon work to find the CEO's behind these structures. edit: some of my favorite "anti-coin-BS" warriors were @cybergibbons on Twitter (security researcher Andrew Tierney from PentestPartners) and Mathew D. Green (among others). They spent a tremendous amount of time trying to educate these kids about the problems in their assumptions. IOTA was on top of this list of BS-coins since they literally insisted that a hash-function does NOT need to be collision resistant (e.g. after their Kerl-function was exposed for this by the crypto-community).

dudhehhe 7y ago
Entitlement level checks out, European confirmed.

nullc 7y ago

> but most of them were also not scams [...] most ICOs were not put together by scammers, and many of them have made an honest effort to produced technically advance systems As someone who's had the misfortune of finding myself at events offstage around many famous practitioners in this space... I cannot say I agree. It's my experience that only a small minority appear to have remotely credible beliefs in their prospects. The best I could say is that many appear to be indifferent to the prospects of success for their headline venture, but extremely interested and invested in their success in collecting investments from unsophisticated buyers. Many I've witnessed are outright contemptuous towards the victims that buy into their offerings. You can see this contempt reflected in the contractual terms of the ICO offerings which go out of their way to make sure that absolutely nothing of value is transferred with the sale of the token. You'd have to be either an idiot or simply ignorant of the terms to accept them in virtually every ICO.