Bitcoin Forum

Why do you think so few ICOs are out of Silicon Valley??

Silicon Valley obviously led the last wave of tech development (roughly 1990 - 2010). There's a great deal of entrepreneurship there. There's one of the highest concentration of code developers there, if not the highest concentration in the world. There's venture cap, there's incubators, there's just about everything you should need to be leading the next wave.

And yet... so many of the ICOs are not from the San Fran bay area! In fact, most of the really big, promising ones are not even remotely related to California and often not even the USA. Why do you guys think that is??

because they are too busy slaving away at amazon

Because most ICOs only exist to circumvent the securities laws in the US. If you have a legitimate business idea in SV you can get much more money going the traditional route of VCs.

I know at least 3 projects from Silicon Valley. I think there are a lot projects which are correlated with SV.

Haha... I might agree, except Amazon is located in Seattle, not Silicon Valley.

Seriously though, has the US lost it's edge?

What are those 3 projects?

I too wonder why not more of them. Usually they are everywhere there, where a tech bubble can be pumped...

ICOs have not had a good reputation lately... it's the fault of scammers and, of course, of people investing in their schemes.
Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have always had opportunities to use other methods to raise funds, and I think the vast majority of them will continue to use such methods for a long time.

I think that many projects are somehow associated with Silicon Valley

SV doesn't have the same high level concentration of blockchain experts as other types of developers. Blockchain based companies are just now starting to become more mature and the market is growing. SV VCs like huge markets. While growing, Blockchain just isn't there yet in terms of mainstream adoption.

I'm sure you'll start to see more projects get launched in SV as time goes on. However, with successful ICOs, you don't really need SV VCs so there's not a lot of reason to move there especially when you can build a global company in a much less expensive market. Attracting developers may still be a challenge outside of SV, but if the blockchain experts aren't there now, then it's no different than the challenge of recruiting them elsewhere.

Thanks for the many responses.   If anyone knows of any ICOs that are actually associated with Silicon Valley, please list them!

I think the main reasons are:
1) The American government ban the ICO.
2) They are busy with a lot of creative ideas and investment.

because Silicon Valley , central is big technology industry and starup company
the big company, amazon, google and more have office in there

so can incraese brand use from silicon valley

but iam not understand why youre write ico from silicon valley, in USA ico project not support in there

That's a common misconception.  The SEC did not ban ICOs in the USA.
They issued guidance saying that any ICO that qualifies as a Security needs
to be registered.  They gave the example of the DAO as such an ICO.

However, ICOs are still allowed and don't have to be registered. They just need
to pass the Howey Test.  The exact details of that are a bit much for just this
thread, but suffice to say ICOs have not been banned in the USA.

Probably because of the regulations recently imposed by SEC. You will need time to hire lawyer, understand regulations and formalise the T&C. Alternatively, you can run the ICO from another country.

Open Money is based in silicon valley San Francisco, along with Civic. I have invested in Civic and will plan to invest in Open Money because of their team and also because they are located in Silicon Valley.

It's hard to pull a scam in Silicon Valley because your reputation travels very far here. I'd suggest investors purely to invest in Silicon Valley ICO projects.

Yes, Civic was a solid project.  But Open Money... I'm not so sure about.  You can see some of the
criticisms about Open Money on this thread.

   https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2167058.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2167058.0)

Generally though, I'd agree that SV projects are higher quality and less likely to be scams.

Go on...

Because ICO's are pyramid schemes.

They are still doing crowdfunding, not ICO.... Old-fashioned ;D actually, I think they are just afraid of risks.

I also think cost has to play a role in it, very few ICO's break the 100 million mark. Most only break a couple of million. That money doesn't go as far as in other areas, / countries.

USA is hostile to cryptocurrency and ICOs and they have acutally made it difficult for an ICO issuing company to collect funds from places within their jurisdiction.

Not just San Fran. Look at Switzerland and Netherlands and Singapore. So much fintech there, so few ICOs. If any.

I think a lot of the start-ups there are connected, or prefer to go through connections and networking to get their funding. With crypto, I guess they also go for the so-called angel investors and so on. ICOs may get them funding, but they still won't have the networks or reputation, that you get from being linked to the big names. ICOs are still people hiding in the dark, for the most part.

Hint:

VC's also want a good chunk of your business for some upfront cash. An ICO gives you much more control and you get to keep your percentage in it.

Nobody in Silicon Valley works on cryptocurrencies. Why would they when they are working on self-driving cars, satellites and more important things? Did you know the average engineer makes $225,000 a year in Silicon Valley? Go read up!

They can get crowdfunding.

There is no reason for ICO.

Gleb Gamow, pray tell!

(I searched by I couldn't find anything at that address... just a bunch
of bars are restaurants.)

You are not investors.
You are purchasing a currency.
You are not "investing" in "startups".
Nor should you be.. the point of this is to avoid the corporations.
Not buy a coin from them  ::)

Morphing Bitcointalk/Crypto into a Bitcoin Rip-Off / Kickstarter scam site for centralized exchange profits is utterly retarded.. and scammy as hell.

You have no right calling yourselves investors or even talking on this matter.
Unless you want to bring up the fact that an IPO is regulated and this scammy shit is not.
Martha Stewart went to fucking jail for insider trading for fuck sakes idiots.
Penny stocks my god damn ass.
You are deliberately pursuing a new scam technique.
Instead of Water Filter scams from the 80's it's crypto coins now.

All crypto is..
Is a new age version of old scams.. crypto-ponzi / pyramid scheme "tokens"

You call yourselves investors yet write endless blank checks with no assurance you will get anything back from "the startup" ?
Do you ask for accountability ? DO you check up on them and hold their feet to the fire when you hand them millions ?
Fuck no.. you buy your "tokens" then dump them on an exchange then forget about it.
Where is the board of investors asking questions ?
Oh Spoetnik means FUD ? Yeah that is bad in crypto isn't it ?

You are scammy broken English noob brats pushing illegal scammy bullshit.
I don't like you and hope you all get ripped off.
Thanks for taking over and fucking up crypto forever.
And that goes for all the Legendary accounts who are STILL Here joining in with the scammy parade for BITCOIN PROFITS.
I know you fuckheads are here watching me..
Your type is even worse.. you know better. (unlike the noobs)

Watch the TechCrunch Disrupt SF talks that happen this week. Many of the VC managers said they were looking into ICOs. I think it was a partner at DFJ that said they had a team of 10 people that read whitepapers all day.

Lol it's more like $100-150k

ICOs are mainly used to get some funding for a project.
Now if you are working in the Silicon Valley, you probably know enough Venture Capital firms (and managers) which can help you with (pre)funding.

ICOs are not necessary in this case than.

Swarm Fund is based out of silicon valley

the project looks very promising

https://www.forbes.com/sites/giovannirodriguez/2017/08/16/can-swarm-fund-help-the-cryptocurrency-market-finally-enter-the-mainstream/#3c562d2f2e77

https://swarm.fund/

The position of the US government in relation to ICOs must be a considerable factor. And also their antagonism towards cryptocurrencies in general.

I think that ICO is more interesting for places far away from venture investors.

If I was in SV the easiest way to rise funding is to find investor even in seed round. But if I live in other place where to find investor very hard - ICO is silver bullet. I think so.

When I first time heard about ICO I wonder that it is revolution for me and my teammates. We live far away from SV but our dream was to build our own awesome web-application. With ICO we can rise funding and than we can develop awesome product and throw away outsourcing developing.

It's true that there's more access to Venture and Angel funding in SV.  But from the
people I know there, they say that getting funding is still pretty challenging. And unlike
an ICO, VC funding means you give a big chunk of your company to the investors.

So there are definitely downsides to VC funding. And definitely incentives to consider
ICOs instead.

There are plenty of Silicon Valley people involved in crypto and ICOs. But they are running them out of different jurisdictions, eg. Tim Draper with Bancor (Switzerland), Credo (China/UAE/Spain/Russia)

The regulatory system in the US is behind the times and struggling with crypto. They will make ICOs difficult thinking that is helping protect their people from fraud - in one of the most corrupted, fraud-ridden governments - meanwhile other countries will see future economic growth from embracing the blockchain.

Silicon Valley VCs still rule the world, but not for much longer. Expect them all to be doing blockchain funds within 2-3 years.

VCs look for something that can go from 0 to $1 billion in 12 months. Token investors look for concepts and companies they want to support that will get more popular in the future. Evolution = tokens, not VCs.

There are...just don't think they've marketed yet.

I've been taking a look at SyncFab (https://blockchain.syncfab.com). They've been established in the Silicon Valley for the last two years and looking to build a blockchain to revolutionize the industrial manufacturing industry even more.

Would love to hear your thoughts on it.

Also, a reason why Silicon Valley companies haven't gone ICO is b/c a lot have VC investments already - going ICO would break or complicate any agreement in place.

Very good observation!!! I work for a Fortune 50 S/W comp in Silicon Valley, and haven't heard a peep about Dapps or blockchain technologies. I think it threatens a lot of these companies

Has anyone ever heard of blockchains at berkeley? Not an ICO, but they do lots of great blockchain projects, consults for companies, and offers classes and lots of great events.

Let me guess, you are a virgin?.....AHHAHAHAHAA

He probably is.  But let's not encourage the troll...

I guess regulation.  Check out CommerceBlock though.  First ICO to have a BIP associated with it.  BIP175

US/Silicon Valley ICOs are few by number of them but they are the largest in size. Most of the amount they raise comes from VCs that own huge amount of BTC purchased dirt cheap from US Marshals (Silk Road confiscation).

Silicon Valley is all about monopolization, centralized control and rent seeking.

I guess they see the distributed model of blockchain technology as irrelevant to their activities. If they use it - it will be closed and controlled.

by Naval Ravikant (founder at Angel List)

Filecoin is based in Silicon Valley, and that's the largest ICO to date. Y Combinator is also building something to allow people to invest in its startups through the blockchain. That's some pretty big projects coming out of SV.

Smaller projects may also be able to raise money through accredited investors rather than from the public, so we may not hear of them. Additionally, legislation is a limiting factor, especially for any existing companies that may otherwise consider a token sale, but would rather not risk being on the wrong side of the law.