Indeed, it has always been our focus to build value into our ecosystem, rather than hope that speculative traders can propel DNotes forward. We have a lot going on that will certainly add significant value to our ecosystem. Once value has been created, this is the juncture that people begin to realize that you are onto something special, and prices may begin to closer reflect that increased value and be much more likely to be sustainable at that level.
We are always very appreciative having you stopping by Amadeus82. We also hope that the market will continue its early signs of recovery which may lead to some more positive headlines in the mainstream media.
TeeGee it is my pleasure stopping by and get some updates, DNotes team always answers the question which I post here, which is a thing that I really appreciate. That's a rare quality in the crypto world
I know that DNotes is not building just the coin, but the whole ecosystem and that takes time
Since I see that you are all very active and are really working hard on making your vision come to life, I have no problem with patiently waiting for more updates. I'm sure that with the time, as ecosystem grows, also will the price of the coin
Agreed Amadeus82, to bring a vision to life requires using your opportunities and timing wisely -- to be the last one standing, rather than just the first. We see a lot of people trying to blazing ahead on what they think 'the answer' is to crypto adoption with large amounts of money that they never earned and/or acquired easily through an ICO. While some of the contributions to the industry are noteworthy, many of them become redundant very quickly, and in many other cases the large cash burn rates of these projects mean that the majority will not be able to continue operations once the funding dries up, since it remains unlikely their product will catch on and that their revenue will ever be able to match the spending rates they are accustomed to.
Say I give a hypothetical example for just one year of operations for a typical ICO might look like:
1. I raise $15m of Bitcoin+Eth in a new coin called "Tim ICO". Balance = 15m
2. I need to pay $1m of the proceeds for the marketing partners that I used during the raising process. Balance = $14m
3. I pay myself and my core team of 5 people a yearly salary of around $200k USD (This is a LOW estimate). Balance = $13m
4. I pay to attend and speak at 5 conferences (~250k) to promote the ICO and brand. Balance = $12.75m
5. I pay 1m for lawyers, accountants and various licences in the countries that I choose to operate. Balance = $11.75m
6. I lose an average of 30% of average sale price from Bitcoin volatility (presuming I was selling my ICO proceeds in tranches over time for the entire 15m, so losing $5m). Balance = $5.75m
7. Have to pay for exchange listings (500k to 1m to get on 2 or 3 medium to large exchanges -- cost for exchanges with only 15-20m in *fake* daily traded volume is usually 100-150k). Balance = $4.75m.
8. Pay for core development of a medium-sized platform - easily 1m. Balance = 3.75m.
9. Salary for ongoing retained developers on the payroll for releasing new apps and maintenance etc -- let's assume five developers are 70-100k each (probably more), just assume 400k. Balance = $3.45m.
9. Administration, support team, and other internal hires for a medium sized project - 1m easily. Balance = $2.75m.
10. Depending on the variances in the above, a project like the one described could have entered year two with $0, or anywhere up to perhaps half of the initial funds raised. It is likely the second year would eat the remaining investment, but year two is also likely to cost a lot less to continue operating than the first year where most costs were for setup of the venture. In some cases Bitcoin volatility could have led to the venture having a lot more than it started if they carried out their ICO when Bitcoin was worth 2k USD, and then sold at the top at 20k. There are a lot of variables.
*Some costs in the above hypothetical example may be less, but in many cases they will be MUCH more.
The point is, observation is showing that many ICO projects are big spending in an effort to get ahead, however many of these expenditures are much greater than they should be or need to be. In many cases, the effect of big spending marketing at conferences, advertisements, PR firms, exchange listings etc have very short-term effects on the price of the token. The entire token market cap in some cases becomes worth less than the amounts paid in marketing budget. Think of conferences in our industry for example -- it is not uncommon for a project to pay 50 thousand to 250 thousand dollars to get a talking spot at a blockchain conference. There is very little benefit for an ICO project to pay such a fee to speak (especially if they've already raised their funding), and its sore news for attendees who are only listening to somebody because they paid to speak, rather than because they have any expertise. These conferences that C-level executives from ICO projects pay to speak at, are not paid for to benefit the projects ecosystem whatsoever, but more to boost the personal brand of the speaker so that they can become famous, and boost their credibility for their future business endeavors in the industry when they create their next ICO.
Over time, this free spending becomes a drain on the venture, and what may have begun as rapid progress turns into a cash burn that can't be sustained. I'm certain that there are almost no ICO projects that are turning a positive cash flow that is great enough to pay for prior levels of expenditures at the moment, which means that once the funds begin to run low, employees begin to get dropped, marketing budgets reduce, and the projects are forgotten in time. Think of how many ICO projects you heard about six months ago that were 'all the rage' -- how many of them do you hear about today? How many of them are worth even 20% of what they were at that date? The point I'm illustrating here is that massive marketing budgets, and free-spending hasn't really helped them in the long term. It just enriched the people behind the project.
By comparison, the compliant business models that we are beginning to see emerge use funding from equity investors to fund operations, rather than ICO investors who are owners of an intrinsically worthless token. This means there is a much greater incentive to spend money wisely where there is likely to be a return on investment. There are no quick 'exist strategies' when it comes to equity investment projects, compared to ICO markets where the developers can just quickly sell all their coins after their marketing created the desired pump. Seeing the coins still held by project developers from ICO projects would be information I'd be most fascinated to see. While many ICO projects are still well-funded, most are quickly running out of funds, and will die (it's unlikely they'll be able to attract private investors for equity, and if they do, it just means the ICO was a ruse to enrich the developers and getting everyday people to pay for the development, and not the wealthy equity investors).
At the end of the day, the number of ICOs is falling rapidly, and most of the ICOs that are trying to raise funds are not getting anywhere near their desired funding targets. If this trend continues, it means there are likely to be far fewer free-spending ICO projects around distorting the prices of everything in our industry (exchange prices, conference prices etc), because they'll all be running out of cash to burn and there will be fewer new projects entering the market.
I predict most projects will move to private placement under Reg D and Reg A+ (which this is already beginning to happen), and much more sensible spending by those projects, because they will be accountable to their investors.
With all of the above, the basic thought behind it is that without a sensible business plan, you can only spend other people's money without consequences for so long--until you can't. At that time, you remove yourself from competition, and the people are the last ones standing--that didn't waste all their money--will be the winners.
Now just imagine what a sensible spending company armed with 15m or even 50m could achieve in the long term?
...and those are my unstructured thoughts for the day, wasn't expecting to write so much. Might paraphrase the above into an article.
About a year ago where whole market was growing rapidly there was an explosion of ICOs and everybody was talking about them. I have been monitoring the progress of some and I must say that many of them are already dead and most of the rest are also on that path 
In many instances the teams are not even posting or responding on Twitter, Bitcoin form or other social platforms anymore...and on the Telegram groups of those coins, there is just a bunch of desperate people asking the same question "when moon?" all over again 
