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I think making promises and taking money from people based on promises you very likely can't fulfill is enough to label something as a scam, and that seems to b

• sanderjd 5y ago
  Is this also true of all startups that take funding and then fail? That would be one reasonable definition of "scam" I think, but personally I think it is more useful to have different terminology for speculative high risk ventures that make a good faith effort but fail vs. malicious schemes designed only to take money and run. I think there are lots of both things in this cryptocurrency space, but I think it's reductive to throw your hands up and say they're all the same.
  • sanderjd 5y ago
    Debating myself a bit: the reason startups tend to attract fewer scams is that only accredited investors can invest in them. There is definitely something to be said for that!
    • arcticbull 5y ago
      Generally you're only going to get decent money from bigger names (or at least one leading the round) - and a bad reputation will make it quite unlikely you'll get to play again. This helps avoid many straight-up scams like Dentacoin (lol). Then, your future rounds of investment are conditional on demonstrated success. Your A can be a bridge round based on traction or a materialized idea. However, your B is generally based on hard numbers. ICOs tend to get series F/G money up front on a hope and a prayer. Circle CI raised $100M in a Series F. Check out this whose-who of token failure that all raised the same amount or much more on day 1 (https://decrypt.co/53950/the-10-biggest-icos-heres-where-the-money-went https://decrypt.co/53950/the-10-biggest-icos-heres-where-the...).