Lesson NO. 1
CROWD-FUNDING TOKENS
Crowed funding using tokens was a very successful form of raising funds from the public in the past year and a half. Beginning with the great success of Mastercoin trough the 7$, 5hr maidsafe crowdsale http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/03/mastercoin-maidsafe-crowdsale/
But most of this successes can be attributed to the general misunderstood concept of value. How it is attached to a currency, and what the market is expecting from a financial instruments such as currency.
The investment in these new initiatives to develop a product sometime in the future, leave the tokens empty of real value at the present time.
The Mastercoin token did not even had any real use for the tokens, and holding the token did not grand any use or service to the holder. It was purely speculative value based on the wrong assumption that there will be a value attached to the token based on users network.
The big hype around Etherume's token, the Ether, Was better justify as it was designed to be the system's medium of exchange. Meaning the services rendered by the future platform will require the use of that token. But again the platform itself was far from being a working system looking for funds to market it. It was a bit more decorated than a white paper, pushed by some bitcoin enthusiasts (and possibly some others with different motivations).
"Investors" in tokens are not Angel investors, these are people with little money to loose looking for a quick turn around. Most of them, based on their deep believe in the future of crypto-currency.
Only a handful of more experienced altcoin traders were able to get good returns of their investment. I believe that most people are holding to it waiting for the day it will be needed.
All these developments are part of a learning curve of such new reality. The contribution of these people is extremely important for the future and I believe that most of them will be reworded on their investment by the knowledge they acquired on the way to get the currency.
However, the landscape is changing. It is much more clear now that a service or a product must be in existence for the token to be valued at the present time.
On this and the many other factors that will be the main game changers, on the next few lessons entries
meanwhile if you are not too lazy, much of it stated along this thread and my other threads. just look for it and use it to your best interest..