Bitcoin Forum

When we started working on our ICO we had to consider if we should offer discounts, which a lot of ICO's do. We came to the conclusion that discounts and bonuses are a thin line away from fraud. In fact, projects offering volume bonuses are probably all scams, projects with massive discounts are not as easy to classify. I dont expect this to be a popular statement, but there is something really wrong with ICO's these days, they are getting more and more desparate.

I will break this down into the two main concernes:

Early supporters receive a discounts, so they clearly see this as what it is, a discount.
The majority of the supporters come later, and get no discounts. They received a penalty.
What business would penalize their biggest contributor? No real business for sure.

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You have a project, its worth xx ETH/BTC/USD - whatever you used as a valuation model.
Then you decide that the first day it is worth 50% less of what you originally mean its worth.
The next day it is worth 30% less.
Then 20% less.
You get the idea

But the reality in the real world is the other way around. For some strange and unknown reason your project went up significantly in value from day one to day two. The same happened the next day, and the next day. For no reason your project are being prices higher and higher, the idea is the same, you havent launched any business during these days. In fact, you havent written a single line of code, and your project is going up in value. Why? Because there are no discount models in normal markets, you set a valuation on a business, this does not change from one day to another when there is no trading. A stock market on the other hand will vary in price from one day to another, the same goes for crypto exchanges. But no business, or project, can set a variable valuation. The world does not work this way.


The sad reality is that discounts and bonuses will probably be one of the reasons ICO's will become heavly regulated, and it will happen a lot sooner than we think. So the greed and close to fraud alike ways some of these ICO's raise money will eventually kill this marketplace. I cannot be the only one who see this?

I wrote a article on this, if you are interested:
https://medium.com/@mogico/why-ico-bonuses-and-discounts-have-a-negative-effect-on-the-ico-market-7b6324545c77

The amount of Ethereum is not what matters, the price of the coin during the investment date and the release date is what matters most.
You have get the concept.

You probably have a reason for your argument which you clearly have the right to hold that view so also those who feels that they should give incentive to those who are investing early. I have seen a project that does not discriminate against early investors or late investors became a success so also I have seen the one that offer discount also successful. I think beyond the bonus promises, what matters is the project. I tell you if you ICO is one that the community accepts, offering bonus is just a waste of time because it would be oversubscribed within a short period of time but if not, even with 100% bonus, it would still not be subscribed to.

Unequivocally, growth in our case contains a speculative component. But in the young market, which is the market of crypto-currencies, this can not be avoided

I do not agree with this, for me, the bonuses and discounts are the real "prize" for just investing in an ICO at the early stages.

If you buy directly from exchanges, with ZERO bonuses, then you are not getting anything for free and you are not being rewarded for having HUGE balls for being part of the ico.

I like bonuses, and that is why i invest in them.

I can't agree with you.
Bonuses and discounts are the main incentive to buy tokens from an ICO and if I miss it, I'm moving to next project.