Most coins or ICO platforms (like waves or eth) are scams in the way that money needs to be fed to a system that does not create any value or solves any real usecase. So in that way it's a ponzi. It's nothing more than a transfer of money from the ppl who get in late to the people who came in earlier. The whole ICO thing is just a crowdfund based on empty promises using worthless and valueless tokens (in an unregulated environment). Aside of all the crap icoscams there are a lot of premined, instamine or dodgy forks that are nothing more than money generating tools for the devs (dash,chaincoin,dogecoin, onecoin, stellar lumens, zcash,nxt, syndicate, augur, eos, steem and what not more). Look at the Chaincoinpump...4 years of inactivity on github than just before the pump 4 or 5 changes on github. No code changes, just textual changes. Within 3 days the whole space starts making up stories about chaincoin being the next big thing, trying to lure other people into the pump....7 days later...forgotten...cycle repeats.
Do not forget the marketing machine behind coins and something like ethereum. Massive amounts of money thrown in to keep the "revolutionary blockchain smartcontract story" alive while on the other hand skilled technical people downplay the potential of the blockchain and warn for the hype that is created by the money sharks. This whole swindle is worse than the whole rotten culture that lead to the subprime crisis in 2008.
All house of cards exploiting FOMO dreams and greed
Look at this Tezos guy (231 million in ICO) not being able to define 1 viable real world usecase. Clear sign that the space is gone mad.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gsY5wXj4Xm8What is poisoning for the space is that everybody bought into the crap and becomes a coin evangelists. Even more so for all the people out here (you can recognize them with their own ICO adds in the signature) that spread messages to lure other people in. Multi level marketing....neighbours sell to neighbours until there is no neighbours left....leaving the first x rich and the last y crying. All repeating the same story to trigger the FOMO in people.
As a side effect shitloads of money gp to companies that will not deliver anything useful.
https://hackernoon.com/dear-sec-icos-tokens-are-killing-innovation-2f8d287f88c3Chaincoin example
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i5NTKh-MNH8DASH example
https://youtu.be/VrKU0Ymta-UWAVES example
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XC1sPozgmpAAnd now....I'll wait for the FUD frame.