Topic: 3 kinds of ICOs — Protect yourself - page 22. (Read 13686 times)

Electroneum is dishonest. Their website states:


That’s not true. Those things are not needed with PoS and PoI blockchains.

Their website states:


Is the Electroneum team living in 2009 or 2017? Or, are they trying to scam newbies into thinking that Bitcoin is the only crypto currency that exists? There are many crypto currencies already that provide privacy, such as Monero, PIVX and Zcash.

Mobile? Lots of altcoins can be on the phone. Offline wallet? This is when Electroneum is deliberately misleading or lying. They state:


Are they trying to make you think that there are no offline wallets for Bitcoin and Ethereum? There are LOTS of them.

On this interview with the CEO, he talks about how 200 million mobile phone users will be able play online gambling sites if they had crypto currencies on their phones:

https://youtu.be/qq24jCuHi7k

So, what’s so special about Electroneum? You already have a multitude of crypto currencies on your phones today.


Spectivvr.com’s white paper has only one problem that they are trying to solve. Their write up of the problem is less than one page and is one of the weakest and most nebulous problems I’ve ever read. I have no idea why a new crypto is needed.

If Spectivvr.com is trying to put virtual reality onto the blockchain, then it shows that they are clueless about the blockchain and that they have never run Bitcoin’s full node. ARToken wants to put 3D data onto a blockchain. This implies hundreds of Terabytes of data. Bitcoin’s blockchain is 120 GB and Ethereum’s blockhain is 200 GB and they are both having scaling problems.

Their business model is given in one sentence:


How are they going to compete against Youtube, which already provides 4k videos? What’s to stop Youtube from providing virtual reality videos? How many viewers are going to go through the hassle of buying Spec tokens just to tip video producers, when they don’t have to do that now on Youtube?

You are correct that some ICOs with prototypes/products will fail and some ICOs without prototypes/products will succeed. What you have to assess for yourself is the probability. Venture Capitalists have decades of experience and they rarely invest in startups without a prototype/product. They are trying to reduce their risk.

There are a few differences between when Ethereum had its ICO and today:

• There are far more ICOs today than back then, so you can be much choosier
• Vitalik Buterin was co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine in 2011. This means that he was already a leader in the field, when he started Ethereum in 2014. Most of the ICOs today are not started by leaders in this field. Some of them have only been exposed to cryptocurrencies for a few months. Change Bank's "Blockchain Expert" worked in Inside Sales until 1.5 months prior.
• Vitalik grew up in Canada and Ethereum started in Switzerland. Today, you have many ICOs coming from corrupt countries around the world. In 2014, you didn't.

There is no guarantee that any business will not fail. But, when the ICO team has a prototype/product, they have proven that they can develop. That significantly reduces your risk. With many ICOs, you have no idea if they can. You cannot trust the information on the profile of many ICOs. Just because they can hire somebody to make a video, it does not mean they can write thousands of lines of complicated code. It's like you giving money to someone to fix your car, simply because he says he can fix cars but have never fixed one before.

Y Combinator is one of the biggest startup incubators in the world. They provide a small amount of funding (approx. $25k to 50k) to startups, which usually consists of 2 founders each. Then they build prototypes or products. Then the startups give pitches to angel investors or Venture Capitalists. If prototypes or products are unnecessary, then why do they waste so much time and money before pitching to angels and VCs?

Almost all incubators have startups that consist of usually only 2 founders, that are building prototypes and products. ICOs are stacking their team with a dozen people and they still cannot build anything. With 12 people, they should've built 6 prototypes/products by now. This shows that they are simply stacking their teams with useless people, in order to impress you or sucker you in.

Folks, www.balanc3.net a new accounting platform prove value with new accounting Tech, claims this would be good for investors. Would that work?

Thumbs up for you!

One of the best things I've ever read about ICOs. Thanks for the very informative thread.

Very good points that everyone who wants to invest in Cryptocurrency or ICOs should know. Everyday, the market is flooded with new people hearing about the new digital money and want to jump on the train, but it's not that simple. Always invest only what you can afford to lose!

Thank you for writing this, this is amazing information for newbies into the crypto game, and perhaps even veterans. I'm going to refer this thread to people whenever they make bold claims about crypto!

I have 2 ICOs that potentially a scam
- Face coin : no more update after ICO finished but website and Twitter account still alive.
- Tracor network : 1 day after ICO date finished the website and twitter account also deleted.... phew in fact this is the worst ICO that I joined.
Lesson learned.... please do your own assessment, there are many people in the forum promoting the ICO for their own benefit.

I bookmarked this page so that I can reminded all the time of these factors to note to assess ICO.
Thanks you so much the the OP.

TokenStars has no explanation of why the current currency (EUR, GBP, etc.) needs to be replaced by a token. Their site says "you support a promising 14-16 year old player [athlete] - player spends money".  This means the player will sell the token to get EUR to pay for rent and food. What good is the token? Also, who is to say that the player or anyone else will honor any agreement to repay the supporters 2-6 years later? If you're a token holder, are you going to wait that long, only to hope that the player repay token holders?

PeerGuess is one of those ICOs using the same star constellation animation that I've seen on other sites. Are they using the same graphic designer, or is PeerGuess another ICO put out by the same group of scammers? Even if PeerGuess is not a scam, it is TOO LATE and TOO LITTLE.

TOO LATE: Gnosis, Augur and Stox already had ICOs to get into prediction markets, though Gnosis and Stox still haven't built anything yet and Augur built a beta that is barely usable. This shows that execution is much harder than anything they've done before, including an ICO.

TOO LATE and TOO LITTLE: Stockbet already has built software that lets people bet on crypto currencies (and stocks). PeerGuess has a sales pitch.

This shows that ICOs with large teams mean nothing. With 12 members, PeerGuess should have been able to build something. Startups at Y Combinator consists of 2 founders each and they're building prototypes and products. Since PeerGuess hasn't built anything, it probably means that most members add little to no value (assuming that they are real people), but they included them to make you think that they add value.

To sum things up in short:
1. Either icos will act as if they are very sincere and honest and scam you and run away with your money.
2. Icos won't scam you they will promise you stuff that they will never do about their products and just list their coin in some exchange.
3. They will keep their word and continue even after they get listed on an exchange.

That's so nice, thanks for a good advice!

DomRaider has a fancy commercial running everywhere. It even played ahead of a Youtube video that I wanted to watch.

DomRaider is all marketing and no meat. They are probably liars as well. Their industry, dropcatching, is tiny. If it was as big as DomRaider makes it seem, then Godaddy would be making billions from it. But none of Godaddy’s revenue is attributed to dropcatching on their Income Statement. Godaddy never even mentions dropcatching anywhere in their annual filing to the SEC. Read it:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1609711/000160971117000042/gddy-12312016x10k.htm

Read this guy's blog on why he is giving up on domain drop catching. He gives multiple reasons, such as "getting more competitive", "opportunity cost is not just financial", "each successive drop catch makes less incremental improvement to our overall portfolio", "there may be better things to do with the money":

http://www.webmastering.co.uk/domain-names/why-im-giving-up-on-domain-drop-catching/

After reading the first sentence in Earth Token’s announcement, I stopped. “environmentally sustainability software”??? Is this another example of somebody trying to put the kitchen sink onto the blockchain?

excellent guide and must-read for all new investors (including myself). many thanks, jlp!

CarTaxi got a 2.9 out of 10 rating:  https://hacked.com/ico-analysis-cartaxi/  ...which I agree with. I’m still scratching my head trying to figure out why a blockchain is needed to tow cars.

How often do you need to tow your car? Every day? Or, once every 10 years? Are you going to go through the hassle of downloading the CARTAXI app/wallet and buying CARTAXI coins just in case you need a tow in 10 years?

If you do not, and when the time comes that you are standing at the side of the highway beside your stalled car or flat tire, are you going to spend the extra 20-60 minutes to figure out how to download the CARTAXI app/wallet and buy CARTAXI coins, while you are running late to your appointment and freezing in winter or sweltering in summer because your car engine is not running?

One Bitcointalk user claimed that CARTAXI wants to be the Uber of car towing and the problem with Uber is that they don’t print receipts when paying with cash and that paying with crypto will solve this problem.

Whether the driver or Uber issues an receipt has nothing to do with the method of payment. Just because the method of payment is cash instead of a crypto, it doesn't mean that Uber cannot issue a receipt, eventually if not now.

The reason Uber drivers do not print receipts when they receive cash is because they do not want to declare that income, to avoid taxes. Tow truck drivers probably do the same thing. Do you think Tow truck drivers will want to use CARTAXI so customers will force them to issue receipts, which will make the drivers pay more income tax?

CARTAXI has a very stupid business model.

Agreed on Swarm and Combicoin.
But, with Kyber it is a different story. As far as i understood, they don't hold tokens. They have reserve managers (anyone with specified credentials can be one) and Reserve Contributors (could be you or me). The reserve contributors hold the tokens and supply the Reserve Managers. These Reserve Managers trade on the Kyber Network Platform and are paying a fee in KNC to Kyber, which will get burned.
So, if my understanding is right, Kyber told the truth. They don't hold the tokens and they can provide the liquidity.

another addition:

Make sure to always check the social media of the websites, especially chat applications! Most of the projects have Telegram/Slack groups and you can easily make contact with the founders on these platforms, and ask any question that comes to your head. Chances of getting scammed after asking the right questions and pushing for specific info are greatly reduced that way

Swarm Fund is lying. They say that you need large amounts of money to buy real estate and your money is tied down for an indefinite amount of time. This is false. You can buy one share of a REIT, and there are thousands of REITs to choose from, and you can sell it one minute later.  If they start off their pitch with a lie, what else are they lying about?

There is another flaw with Swarm, which is similar to the flaw with CombiCoin. You will have to trust that the coin is backed up LEGALLY by the land title of the real estate. Who is the owner of the real estate? John Doe? Who is to say John Doe will uphold any agreement that the real estate, that has his name in the municipal records as the owner, will be ascribed to the coin holders? Is there a legal contract that you can take to a court to uphold the agreement?

Atlant and HomeToken have the same problems as Swarm. In addition to that, they both have the same problem as coin banks, exchanges and investment funds. The money is centralized into a honey pot, which makes it attractive to hackers and employees to steal.

Take many of the recommendations on Bitcointalk with a grain of salt. Many of them are pump and dumpers.

Kyber brags that one of its benefits is that it doesn’t hold the users’ tokens. Therefore, the tokens won’t get hacked or stolen. They are implying that if they hold tokens, the tokens can get hacked or stolen.

Then they say that they guarantee high liquidity by “holding reserves of all tokens in the network” that users may want. They would need to hold TONS of tokens to guarantee high liquidity. By holding tokens, these tokens can get hacked or stolen, according to Kyber.

Their business model is completely flawed.

In regards to CombiCoin, their pitch is that you reduce risk by diversifying. However, they increase risk for you because they have your money and you have to believe that it’s backed by other coins. Tether is doing this already, except they back up Tether with USD.  There is already talk that Tether is not backing up their coin with sufficient USD. You’ll never know for sure that CombiCoin’s TRIA is backed up by sufficient coins. Instead, if you went out and bought the other coins on your own, you’ll never need to believe anyone’s claims.

@jlp thanks for your work.
I always enjoy reading your posts. you clearly know what you are talking about.