Bitcoin Forum

I am tired of hearing about some promising new project, taking my valuable time to look up the [ANN] topic, dig around through lots of flashy graphics, only to find the topic creator going on and on about some elaborate and self-masturbatory IPO/ICO scheme.  The defenders of said crypto cry:


But the sad truth is that if your project really is as revolutionary as you claim, then it will organically grow to the point where just being a natural early adopter will make you fantastically wealthy.  Then when you 'make it' you will have the added bonus of not having your history tainted by some shady early investment scheme.  
  

I don't care.  With all due respect to Nick Szabo's genius, into the trash it goes.  They should have launched with a clean proof-of-work and a set in stone time for moving to proof-of-stake if they wanted to not have a joke distribution.  Maybe they will go to a jillion dollars per gas, but I won't own a single fart of it for the long haul.  That's not how you launch a world changing currency - that's how you design a scheme to get wealthy.  Crypto is supposed to actually mean something, and getting wealthy is just a side effect.
  
It especially irks me to see actually interesting and innovative projects like Iota's tangle fall victim to this IPO mess.  There are a lot better ways to handle an initial distribution, even for blockchains that technically require it.  The only exception to this rule is micro-premines solely for the purposes of technical testing (like Litecoin's 150 coin micro-premine).  
  
So this is my plea to you, the good programmers of tomorrow: Launch your blockchain with no premine or ICO, and make an honest go at it.  Maybe you fail, and that's ok.  At least your project will fail as an honest project remembered fondly by the community - not some shady pump and dump.

A simple formula is to follow the FinCEN guidance. https://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/html/FIN-2013-G001.html (https://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/html/FIN-2013-G001.html)
If
1) It is a centralized virtual currency
and
2) There is no MSB registration by the "Administrator" making the currency non-compliant
then
3) Run

Those rules are hard as fuck to understand, honestly.  But one thing that jumped out at me is the definition of 'administrator'.  Is someone who premines a currency and sells it off in an ICO/IPO an administrator by those definitions? 
 

Yes, that is how I understand the guidance.

The word "pre-mined" was used in the Ripple case https://www.fincen.gov/news_room/nr/pdf/Ripple_Facts.pdf (https://www.fincen.gov/news_room/nr/pdf/Ripple_Facts.pdf)

Thanks for that link.  I think we are really lucky these rules are in place.  They are strikingly sane for a government agency, and make sense.  I hope that if the SEC is gonna make something similar, they come out with it sooner rather than later.  Modding several cryptocurrency subreddits makes me wonder if I am considered 'held to a higher standard' than an average buyer/seller of crypto, and some statement either way would be nice: "we don't care", "we intend to regulate this at some point, but are figuring out what we want to do", or "here is what we are considering implementing".  I'm sure some devs wonder the same thing.  
  
It's hard to remember, but back in 2011 (ish) there was a time when people didn't know if the US was gonna swoop in any day and outlaw all cryptocurrency.  The early adopters of Bitcoin didn't get rich without losing a few years off their life due to stress.

I doubt the SEC is going to give guidance here. We must keep in mind that they argued Bitcoin was effectively money in the Trendon Shavers' (pirateat40) case. I do not see how they can argue that a de-centralized (FinCEN definition) is a security. Who is the issuer of the said security? As for centralized virtual currencies I see an Administrator who is not registered as an MSB having serious problems first with FinCEN, In addition there may be problems with the SEC.  

Edit. If I feel a crypto currency is a centralized virtual currency as per FinCEN I avoid it, so I do not get to the point of evaluating if in addition there are also issues with the SEC.

I agree with this.

A fair launch should have at least 90 days notice including documentation on what your coin does that makes it worthwhile - no premine, no instamine.

Quark almost got it right but then I found out they had huge rewards at the beginning which gave extra rewards to the very earliest adopters, that wasn't a premine but same concept, and so I bailed on it. Now I realize there were other issues with it as well.

But anyway - yes, I want a fair launch which means time to look at what the coin does before the launch.

lets for a moment talk about the (perhaps idealistic) world where p2p currency's are indifferent to regulation, in this world IPO/ICO are equally trash and should be avoided as they are against one of the main reasons p2p currency's should arise in the first place (but thats lost on the get rich quick crowd that now plagues this community).

I just remembered that there is an actual company behind zerocash who is also taking a devmine.  It should be interesting to see where in the FinCEN guidance this behavior will fall.


Why don't we get a list of legitimate, non-premine, non-ICO/IPO coins and put it in the OP?  If I miss any, let me know.  Off the top of my head I can think of things like Bitcoin, Litecoin, Namecoin, Primecoin, Monero, Aeon, Boolberry, Dogecoin....

i'd agree, there is certainly a ton of fairly launched cryptos, enough that no one needs to be supporting these ICOs, premined etc coins.

Yep do it. MS is getting in bed with some real insta ico scams lately. I wonder if they would boot them out if they'd known about their shady origins.

Put the good and the bad so everyone can see it.

I was there at the Very start of over 100 POW coins. There was only really one fully successful and fair launch. Everything went correct and to plan. Launched exactly on time as advertised. Wallet rar password given to everyone at the same time. Diff went mad as everyone jumped on in the first seconds. Nobody could get more than their fair share. That coin sadly died. It was however a perfect example of how to launch a POW coin.

All you have mentioned are far more fair than most of the ICO coins though.

Sounds good these admins are on a hurry to make money they offer ICO right away even if they do not have a site of their or any feature or road map just a plain algorithm of their clone coin..

If a coin truly has potential it will grow on its own. Look at bitcoin no icos/ipos yet people were still drawn to work on it because it had potential. The reality is that if a coin has potential it will grow on its own without the need for icos/ipos or some other shady shit. These days i outright refuse to touch coins launched via IPO/ICO as there have been far too many of these scam coins in the past and i am tired of greedy devs not doing what they preach.

My favourites are the ones with flashy graphics and swish roadmaps. Roadmaps that lead nowhere. Fodder for goats.

The worst is that the legitimate and honest crypto projects get lumped in with the other garbage.  Only by the community taking a stand and refusing to acknowledge IPO/ICO crypto can this trend be reversed.

The greater community already has. The masses don't adopt nor buy any of the altcoins.

There isn't a problem. It is just a few fools here who like to give their money away. Including yourself.

Nice how your closed the Sia thread so I couldn't rebut you.

Does SIA have a significant premine/ICO/IPO?  I wasn't aware of one. 
 
Also how does it feel to return to Bitcointalk as a full developer?  I knew you had it in you.  What's your coin's ticker so I can own some for the lulz?

I am trying to be a developer of a social network, not of a ticker symbol.

You know something the masses are interested in, not a circle jerk of fools playing greater fool fistfucking with each other while violating SEC regulations and setting themselves up for future jail time.

So you were about to tell me about the Sia premine/devmine/ICO/IPO? 
 
Also, my apologies.  I just heard you say the other day that you were leaving Bitcointalk until your project was launched, so I naturally assumed that since you have returned the project also must have gone live. 
 
Also, since you seem to be so knowledgeable about these things, when FinCEN and SEC guidance conflict - which takes precedence?   What if SEC guidance doesn't apply, or they haven't released any?
 

Where is the conflict between FinCEN and SEC guidance?

Oh I wasn't aware of one.  Actually it seem to me that FinCEN has issued reasonably clear guidelines on crypto, while the SEC (despite being very aware of it) have stayed hands off, except in cases of egregious scams/pyramid schemes.  
  
Despite this, TPTB likes to troll the Altcoin board with doom and gloom talk about how the SEC will one day arrest everyone involved with cryptocurrency because he believes the SEC will consider all crypto to be "unlicensed securities", despite FinCEN guidance already explicitly making the distinction.  
  
So I was just offering TPTB a chance to write another 3000 word essay about the minutiae of SEC law, because that's what his agenda here actually is.  Secretly, every opportunity I get to waste TPTB's time is an invaluable chance to delay his 'ultimate cryptocurrency' just a little bit more, which gives me peace of mind that my flawed proof-of-work fascinations will continue to have a legitimate existence for a while longer.

I thought bitcoin was considered an asset like comic books or bullion...?  I did not think it was actually considered money by the US gov't.

Also, is it possible to have a premined coin that is actually good as a coin?  The issue with premining is that it disproportionately enriches the dev(s), correct?  But the coin could actually be a good one.  Is that possible?

I fail to see why IPO is not a honest way to get initial funding? If you have a good white paper and all you need is money to implement it, IPO is probably the most honest way: win-win situation for both company making it and for early investors, if developers do the ob well. I don't see it being scammy by default.

Agreed 100% OP ..i have a huge problem with ALL IPO/ICO coins.
I never supported any of them ever.. Ripple the first i can recall.

Dev's don't "deserve" to be paid either.

Just because you want to start a free open source currency hosted on Github
doesn't mean we should write you a paycheck (in advance) for 1 Million dollars in Bitcoin.
EXACTLY LIKE BLOCKNET !

I have spent exactly half my life coding and never in my life received one single cent.
I have also refused donations a lot.

This is what i write into my code..


I made the time..
If you can't fund your own project then leave it to someone else who has the means.
Rigging a coin to pay you the dev an obscene amount of coins (you can dump) is complete 100% fucking bullshit !

Sorry assholes but your not ENTITLED to sweet fuck all !
Don't create the problem "WORK" then blame the work for needing to be paid.
You are causing the problem so you can put the fix in..

Ripple ? Ethereum ? scam .

ALL OF THEM ARE SCAMMY BULLSHIT !

And don't even bother trying to say POW can be exploited.
A 100% premine is what an IPO is and it's 1,00000x more exploitable then any POW coin could be !

EDIT:
Once the main guy who starts an IPO possesses all 100% of the coins he can then do what he wants with them.
Imagine having every us dollar for 24/hrs.. know why pay interest to posses your money for short periods ?
Having all the coins is a colossal massive super advantage all on it's own.. never mind getting a "Cut"

Then consider the fact that the coin is no longer possible to be considered Decentralized
when 1 single guy or COMPANY inc. posseses -ALL- of the coins on launch.

THAT make sit a Pyramid scheme more than it does any sort of "currency"

Here i thought you new age digital hippies wanted a decentralized currency to topple "The Man" ?
How is a guy owning all the coins on an IPO launch any different than the US Federal reserve ?

Why do you all dive on all these THOUSANDS of IPO/ICO coins ?
Simple.. Greedy profit .

So ?
It means they are ALL doomed to failure.. ever heard of a Pyramid scheme that worked out well ? ROFL  :D

EDIT2:
See the comment below mine ?
They don't get it and never will.
It's like ike talking to a brick wall.

There are some IPO/ICO scam coins. Some ppl may be scared of it. But why should we be against it as long as the project is promising and run by legit ppl. Many talent developers just lacks of fund to start it. We could fund their projects and get some return. What is the problem with it?

Yeah yeah NXT and NXT2 (iota) insta ICO's are well distributed non scams. Okay!

Both have terrible intial distribution and already a lot of the whales are dumping out on noobs for 30x ICO price.

People this time are on to it though. Nobody is going to fall for nxt2 from the same people who scammed everyone into paying millions for their 21 btc nxt1 tokens.

Name any and WHAT made them a scam.
Not delivering on FUTURE promises ? Is that it ?
See what i said earlier so i don't have to copy & paste a wall of text AGAIN.


Because they are ALL a pyramid scheme for profit.
NONE of them ever accomplished anything but THOUSANDS have been made.

Promising ? What is ? their claims ?

Name one that REQUIRES / NEEDS an IPO launch for it to work.

Notice how POW coins were made first ? Why were they abandoned in favor of IPO's ?
When i started there was no such thing as a "White Paper" or ICO / IPO.
They were stolen from the REAL stock markets.. while we have no laws.


Are you high on fucking Crack ?
NONE of these anon fuckers are "legit"
ALL of them have a massive long track record of shitty coin cloning.. HIDDEN
Posted on a web site with no rules AGAINST posting scam coins.

"MANY" I'd say that is a stretch..

What did they make that was not already in Litecoin or Prime Coin or Bitcoin etc ?
That they are making IPO's with..

And don't have the Funds ?
What funds do you need ?
You HAVE TO quit your day job to post an ANN topic after you rip the code from Github ?
Uhhh maybe leave the coin cloning to people who can do it for free in their spare time ?
AS IT WAS MEANT TO BE !

Did Satoshi say ok idiots i want a million $$$ in cash to code my coin ?


You all have been told this endlessly and if you don't grasp basic common sense
then suffer like the stupid greedy little idiot brats you are.

Because in case you don't get it yet ?
They are ALL doomed to failure.. AND they all contribute to killing Crypto dead including Bitcoin itself !

I think it is a free speech forum and I just expressed my ideas, not attacking anyone! You have a strong unreasonable bias! I don't need to provide any evidence to argue with you, which is wasting my time! Please stop shouting and act as normal human being! Just check you trust! You deserve it!

pretty sure sia did have an ico, unless theyve done away with those tokens that collect sia through how much space is rented out?

what were they called? sia notes? i dont know but ive got a key for one on a usb somewhere..

edit ..wrong reply

MAIDSAFE ICO..? ETHERUM ICO..?  ;D

not some shady pump and dump...
Have you even once considered the gross excess of "shady pump and dumps" is enabled by the toxic, hostile environment for truly original, worthwhile projects that might need some good programmers to get paid?

Both long had very long advertising of the ICO and gave good opportunity. Ethereum gives POW for distribution too so that's extra bonus fair points.

However at this moment with zero regulation or transparency all ICO can be gamed much easier than POW that follows some reasonable fair release procedure.

The solution is huge advertising and a large amount of time before ICO and during ICO.

Banner campaign
facebook and twitter rewards



The only ICO that usually do this  to ensure good distribution are the ones that are intending to run with the btc sadly. The others that know they have a good idea try to sell as much as possible to themselves and a few pals then advertise it's great and desirable properties so they can flog it for 20-50x the instaICO buy price in that they sold it to themselves for.


Half ICO half POW not so bad.

There is nothing wrong with getting paid and there are many good models for doing that. The unregulated nontransparent ICO model is not one of them.

I agree with cryptohunter on the ICO model being deeply flawed (even if it does "work" in a few exceptional cases -- that does not disprove the general rule) but I don't agree that banner ads can fix it.


Yeah its only half bad :)

To be clear PoW can be bad. The ultra-fast PoW coins where a bunch of insiders and pumpers rent hash and rape it for a day or a week does nothing to remove manipulation. Slow and steady PoW distribution over years is much harder to game, but arguably that too could be gamed by long-term monopolization (if it turns out that Bitcoin's largely-monopolized mining is not a temporary condition).

But surely POW if following a fair release set of rules.

1. advertised release time and date
2. low block reward at the start
3. diff adjusts quickly
4. long term mining

surely this is

1. far harder to game
2. far easier to see if it is being gamed.


ICO is total mask for what happens behind the scenes. With no rules at all.

POW is not perfect but it is 99% better than unregulated non transparent ICO with little advertisement and over in a flash.

Not too mention the other kind of ICO where they just run off 100% with the funds.

Some ICO try harder than others by a long way to ensure some kind of half decent distribution at the start.

No disagreement.

PoW is superior, but even more superior if it is being mined by the users and not by those who (HODL or) dump their coins to those few in the powerlaw distribution of wealthy who want to stack (HODL) coins.

The only valid role of crypto currency is not as a "better gold" (such a concept is oxymoronic, because gold is as evil as fiat ... ask me to teach you!) but not as a store-of-value rather as a more degrees-of-freedom unit-of-exchange.

Shouting via ASCII text ? hahahah

I think the problem is your not very smart (an honest assessment)
So you don't posses the skills to refute any point i made.
So in reality you are attacking -ME-

You are wasting my time and all those like you.
You are being stubborn and will not -TALK- about the important critical matters.
When confronted you scream troll.. cry.. then run away.

Let's all not forget there is a lot of little kids here who no education
and also a lot of Foreign English as 2nd language users.
So when it comes to having a debate with people like me they are screwed.
Their only recourse to to stab me and run LOL

You don't need to show your ID at the door to get in here guys..
You also don't need to pass an intelligence test or even be able to understand basic English.
I also have always tried to avoid using big words because of these things.
Even though i have actually passed a series of University English tests when in grade 5 done by my Home-Tutor.
I even scored 80 and 100% on them !
Which is why i laugh when people always tell me here they can't understand what i posted.
See any BIG words in my comment ? LOL
I HAVE been dumb'ing it down all along for you all hahahhah

Biggest problem with the Internet is it's all kids with ADD.
Which is how Twitter got so popular..
It's not that you all can't understand what i said.. it's just you start twitching and your eye blinks
and you have to wander off to watch Youtube videos or something LOL
You kids need an "APP" <-- App's are popular.
One that will automatically shrink & condense an old guys long rant to little kid ADD speech.
Good idea huh ?
Well ?
What are you waiting for ?
Go make a coin about it hahahahha

I can't recall when i have agreed 100% with a comment of yours  :o
Well said !
I couldn't agree more.

I am not against dev's getting paid.
But many simply want a job in crypto to pay their bills.
A lot of them simply are a hired gun..
How many well known dev's in crypto have worked on various projects for the $$$ no matter how bad ?
You old school Altcoin guys know what i am saying.

All i ever hear is how IPO's are 100% legit.. but i think they are not for sooo many reasons.
And when comparing i think they are a step backwards over POW.
We need to get the "Holy Grail" of Initial Distribution.. so far we don't seem to be too worried about it.
It seems like the smart minds in crypto just dropped the search because it was too hard and then settled..
on IPO's / ICO's

understood your concern. So investing in the ICO/IPO is really risky. Especially for the average ppl, they don't have the inside information and any thing about the projects except the campaign materials provided by the so called teams. So if you cannot tolerate the associated risk, you'd better go away with it.

@jeanne0012 just skip his posts,dont read them at all.Thats what i do and it works.Also do the same for other guy called bitcoinltclitecoin or whatever his name is.You'll thank me for it.

That's like saying "If you can't tolerate the risk of scam penny stocks, you'd better stay away from it" 
 
Those things aren't trying to build a real and lasting company that provides value to the world - they are trying to extract wealth from suckers.  Ask yourself, is your blockchain startup trying to create something real or extract wealth from suckers?

PoW ends up as a power-law distribution also:


The problem with an ICO is that it is not a free-market competition, because the issuer has an asymmetric advantage because he/she can buy tokens from him/herself at 0 cost. @smooth was the one who pointed this out to me, which I then regurgitated:


The controlled, non-free market result applies to the exchange price manipulation (and ecosystem investment) because the money supply is more concentrated than a typical power-law distribution, i.e. there are too few whales competing with (and distrusting) each other. But note this does not require necessarily (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1664944.msg16726078#msg16726078) that the consensus system is centralized.

It is a shame because PoW is unable to transfer any of the investment capital (of those competing to mine the money supply) to the developers. Rather it is expended on electricity and hardware rental.

However, there is another option. And that is to distribute the bulk of the money supply by some other objective means (other than PoW, or even by PoW) and only ICO a small enough portion that it can't become a concentrated control. Bingo!

@smooth is your mouth agape?  :o

Your missing the point bud.. your reaching to make excuses for ICO's

I have said 1,000 times that having a reserved pile of funds in your control or the rights to them etc on the start is functionally more valuable then you all ever realize.

Why do banks pay you interest to hold money ?
Why would holding 5% of all FIAT for 24 hours be valuable ?

Imagine if there was an offer to hold 10 trillion dollars for 1 day.. sound appealing ?

Reason 1,0000000000000000 why ICO's are scammy.

Spoetnik doesn't want unregulated stock markets.

I guess he prefers Goldman Sach's TBTF dick up his ass than the freedom to speculate with your money without a middle-man underwriter-gatekeeper taking everything:

Burst belongs in such a list. No premine, no IPO/ICO. The POC algo also enables a distribution that is fairer than most, and it also has a green footprint: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1323657.0.

Your argument is fallacios, you can just come out with that bold statement and say All, ok, how would you classified Zcash and again from experience most of the coins that are been mined are scam coins when compares to ICO coins