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99% of projects that had ICOs before 2017 are dead. All investors were wiped out. Founders who raised money were free to use the money however they want, includ

99% of projects that had ICOs before 2017 are dead. All investors were wiped out. Founders who raised money were free to use the money however they want, including for personal purchases, insider trading, etc. Guess who got wiped out the most? The uninformed poor people.

ETH_start 4y ago
The market capitalization of projects that did token sales before 2017 is orders of magnitude greater than the amount invested in token sales before 2017, meaning investors in pre-2017 token sales are, in the aggregate, massively up. This is what venture capital investing is: you invest in 100 projects to hit one homerun. Here is a good paper showing that token sale investments were primarily small, and opening up the venture capital market to the broader public: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11408-020-00366-0 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11408-020-00366-0 You need to insist otherwise because thousands of regulator jobs, and dozens of venture capital funds, depend on it. The poor are just the propaganda fodder the insiders cynically use to gain a political mandate for their repression of the poor.
- senttoschool 4y ago
  There's a massive difference between ICOs and VC investments. 1. VCs can fire the CEO/founder of the startup. You can't fire anyone and have zero control as an ICO investor. 2. VCs sit in the board of the startup and get to review performance and finances. ICOs were completely private from their investors. Token founder using $1m project money to buy a yacht? Nothing you can do nor would you know about it. 3. In the US, VCs are registered with the SEC in order to invest in startups. ICOs started by allowing anyone to invest, which preyed on the poor and uninformed. The market capitalization of projects that did token sales before 2017 is orders of magnitude greater than the amount invested in token sales before 2017, meaning investors in pre-2017 token sales are, in the aggregate, massively up. The few lucky ones who invested in Ethereum and held are massively up. The thousands of other projects scammed investors.
  - ETH_start 4y ago
    Massively more people invested in Ethereum than the type of scam projects that were most likely to belly flop. As the study I referenced states, the vast majority of token sale investments were small. This points to a market where people acted rationally, in risking only small amounts on speculative investments, and makes it more likely that a typical token sale investor would spread their investments across a large number of projects. It therefore stands to reason that there was significant overlap across token sale portfolios on larger and better known sales like Ethereum's. >>VCs can fire the CEO/founder of the startup. You can't fire anyone and have zero control as an ICO investor. Not every one can be a VC. Every one could invest in Bitcoin in 2009, and Ethereum in 2015. The code for these projects is open, with no permissioning on who can release a client or run one. Moreover any one can fork the chain. It's an entirely different governance mechanism than that of traditional shareholder controlled startups, and the experiment should not have been stifled by SEC regimentation, under the false call of "investor protection" made by those employed by regulatory agencies and venture capital funds who had a clear financial conflict of interest in benefiting from centralized control over investment activity.
- pjc50 4y ago
  That link shows this handy graph: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11408-020-00366-0/figures/4 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11408-020-00366-0... Both median absolute return and median excess return are negative. Which of the pre-2017 tokens are you claiming is still up? And why are we choosing 2017? And where have these returns actually come from?
  - ETH_start 4y ago
    Of course the median is down - most projects fail, but the appreciation of tokens from successful pre-2017 token sales, like Ethereum's, is massively greater than the cumulative amount invested in token sales pre-2017.

ETH_start 4y ago

The market capitalization of projects that did token sales before 2017 is orders of magnitude greater than the amount invested in token sales before 2017, meaning investors in pre-2017 token sales are, in the aggregate, massively up. This is what venture capital investing is: you invest in 100 projects to hit one homerun. Here is a good paper showing that token sale investments were primarily small, and opening up the venture capital market to the broader public: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11408-020-00366-0 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11408-020-00366-0 You need to insist otherwise because thousands of regulator jobs, and dozens of venture capital funds, depend on it. The poor are just the propaganda fodder the insiders cynically use to gain a political mandate for their repression of the poor.

senttoschool 4y ago
There's a massive difference between ICOs and VC investments. 1. VCs can fire the CEO/founder of the startup. You can't fire anyone and have zero control as an ICO investor. 2. VCs sit in the board of the startup and get to review performance and finances. ICOs were completely private from their investors. Token founder using $1m project money to buy a yacht? Nothing you can do nor would you know about it. 3. In the US, VCs are registered with the SEC in order to invest in startups. ICOs started by allowing anyone to invest, which preyed on the poor and uninformed. The market capitalization of projects that did token sales before 2017 is orders of magnitude greater than the amount invested in token sales before 2017, meaning investors in pre-2017 token sales are, in the aggregate, massively up. The few lucky ones who invested in Ethereum and held are massively up. The thousands of other projects scammed investors.
- ETH_start 4y ago
  Massively more people invested in Ethereum than the type of scam projects that were most likely to belly flop. As the study I referenced states, the vast majority of token sale investments were small. This points to a market where people acted rationally, in risking only small amounts on speculative investments, and makes it more likely that a typical token sale investor would spread their investments across a large number of projects. It therefore stands to reason that there was significant overlap across token sale portfolios on larger and better known sales like Ethereum's. >>VCs can fire the CEO/founder of the startup. You can't fire anyone and have zero control as an ICO investor. Not every one can be a VC. Every one could invest in Bitcoin in 2009, and Ethereum in 2015. The code for these projects is open, with no permissioning on who can release a client or run one. Moreover any one can fork the chain. It's an entirely different governance mechanism than that of traditional shareholder controlled startups, and the experiment should not have been stifled by SEC regimentation, under the false call of "investor protection" made by those employed by regulatory agencies and venture capital funds who had a clear financial conflict of interest in benefiting from centralized control over investment activity.
pjc50 4y ago
That link shows this handy graph: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11408-020-00366-0/figures/4 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11408-020-00366-0... Both median absolute return and median excess return are negative. Which of the pre-2017 tokens are you claiming is still up? And why are we choosing 2017? And where have these returns actually come from?
- ETH_start 4y ago
  Of course the median is down - most projects fail, but the appreciation of tokens from successful pre-2017 token sales, like Ethereum's, is massively greater than the cumulative amount invested in token sales pre-2017.