Bitcoin Forum

Every day I see a lot of threads being posted here with a lot of similar questions regarding ICOs and the Ethereum platform. There are a lot of discussions about: "What will be the next big ICO?", "Why should I invest in an ICO?", "Are you going to invest in the XXXX ICO?", "Are ICOs scams?" and so on. What I see going on in those threads is that a lot of people enter them to promote their own projects (or to promote a project for exchange of bounties). Also, I see a lot of people that, for some reason, seem to hate the Ethereum platform, some that call it a scam, and some that call every ICO a scam.

These recurring subjects have led me to think about starting this discussion to point a few things that in my opinion should be taken into consideration. Of course, a lot of people won't read my entire message and will just answer "ICOs = scam" or "Ethereum = scam". But, if anyone wants to join this discussion, I think it would be helpful to people that are new to cryptocurrencies and are entering this world thinking they will become rich quickly with no efforts and no need to research and study a lot.

 1. My first advice for everyone in this forum is to do your own research. Before investing in digital assets thinking that they represent a shortcut or magical recipe to become rich, please try to minimally understand the technology behind the cryptocurrencies and why they have been increasing in value since their introduction through Bitcoin in 2009. Try to understand the potential behind the blockchain technology and to read the most you can before investing in a coin or project.
 
 2. There is Bitcoin, which is the first, the biggest, the most well established and most proven decentralized digital currency. The thing is I don't need to dislike or disbelieve Bitcoin in order to support other platforms, such as Ethereum. There are a lot of promising projects going on, and in a lot of cases they are not competing against each other.
 
 3. From Ethereum.org (https://ethereum.org/): "Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third party interference". Smart contracts recorded in an immutable blockchain have the potential to decentralize any kind of product or service exchange, eliminating trusted third parties such as Uber, Airbnb, banks, insurance companies, and so on.
 
 4. The ICO (initial coin offering) model of fundraising introduced a democratic way for small investors all over the world to contribute to projects they believe in and get something in return, usually tokens or coins that have functions in the project product.
 
Before believing when you read something like "Ethereum is a pre-mined scam" or "the only use cases for Ethereum are scammy ICOs", you should question yourself about: how come so many people could have been deceived like this (if this were the case)? How come Ethereum has more than 20 billion invested in? The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (https://entethalliance.org/) is the world's largest blockchain open-source initiative (https://entethalliance.org/enterprise-ethereum-alliance-becomes-worlds-largest-open-source-blockchain-initiative/) with members including Mastercard and Toyota.

So, what is going on? Why there are so many scams? How can so many teams that have no intention of actually building something useful be raising thousands or millions of dollars?

There is a lot of interesting things going on in the cryptocurrencies world. The project I follow the most closely is Ethereum and I believe there are a lot of promising features coming in the near future, with the use of state channels (Raiden Network), the adoption of proof-of-stake, the Metropolis release, the Plasma framework whitepaper released, and so on. I also try to study and to follow the updates on some other platforms. I have interest in knowing more about DAG-based technologies, such as IOTA and Byteball, and other blockchain applications platforms, such as Lisk, and there is a lot to study and learn. And a lot of promising projects are being built on top of the Ethereum network, and a lot of them are using ICOs to fund themselves.

The big problem is that, along with the promising and disruptive initiatives and blockchain applications, a lot of scammers and opportunists appear.

So, my advice is: the best way to avoid mistakes, bad decisions and scams is to know what is behind the coin or project you are thinking about investing in. Don't believe everything you read, especially when it involves high profits promises and stuff that are too good to be true. And, also very important, don't invest money you can't afford to lose, as this market is still on its beginning and high price fluctuations are very common.

Hurray!!! Dentacoin Innitial Coin Offer (The First Medical Coin In History) Hurray!!!

Are you still Alive and wants to remain Healthy? Then Join Dentacoin and Invest.

Note, this ICO comes up on October 1st 2017. Kindly read the below extract from our site and be informed.

Dentacoin is the first Blockchain concept designed for the Global Dental Industry. The Dentacoin ERC20 token is configured to be used globally by all individuals. Dentacoin aims at improving dental care worldwide and making it affordable through crowd power. Numerous Blockchain-based tools will be developed and implemented.

Those early birds who got to know of our first presale bought into it and have made fortunes in multiple times of their investments. Yes, your heard me right, they had presale and DCN is already listed which gave people to trade and make fortunes.
Now is another opportunity brought to everyone in the time of coming ICO where you shall be able to buy at unexpected low price and which is the door of wealth to those who invest.

Buy from ICO starting from October 1st 2017 at a cheaper price and you can begin to make multiple returns immediately ICO ends in a month interval.

Mode of Payment are by ethereum and bitcoin.
For more details and You can also visit our website https://www.dentacoin.com/ to read all about our FAQs and other needed informations. To join any of our social media group, kindly click on any of the media below the website to have a direct contact with the admins and teams. Thanks

Look at the team and evaluate their experience. Look at the project and evaluate if it has real world application. Actually try and talk to the people involved with the project, if they actually try to sell you then go elsewhere. The best projects just talk about their goals and what they are working on, then you decide for yourself.

In my opinion, Ethereum has a lot of opportunities in future. Ethereum smart contracts will implement into a real business, and it would be a second technical revolution. For example, Confideal project makes daily work of small business, large enterprises easier with their technology. It is an anonymous service, which allows you to carry out quick, cheap and safe transactions without the participation of third parties. The platform is based on Ethereum Smart Contracts that are optimized for use by non-programmers.

Most ICOs now and in the near future will be based on eth platform. Eth will dominate ICO even there are some alternatives like waves and etc. Bitcoin itself not use in ICo program, bitcoin holders prefer keep it in the wallet or trade it in the exchangers. ETH uses to invest in ICOs because the smart contract enables instant deploy of new coins to investors. It is much more trusted than wait for the deploying coins after ICO ends.

I couldn't agree more. Yes, the Ethereum has the great potential in future if it keeps on developing and growing. It could be implemented not only in the crypto-world, but also in reality.
Apart from that, with regards to ICOs I think their number will be increasing and increasing because there is no officially accepted regulation how to manage them, and, as the result, the majority of ICOs are scams, in fact.

But how to know what is behind the ICO? Whom to ask, where to read about particular one?

Most often it is possible on the project website
For example, ICO in which I plan to invest a confideal it doesn't hide anything

Yeap, website or join fb page where you can discuss all the details

i also heard that confideal has a good team

And i also heard that confideal similar with another project, But i just see some feedback regarding the project but i will not believe it until the there will be expertise to be a part of them in the future.

Ethereum has great potential and I see it reaching $500 this year and even go higher in 2–3 years!

Please read thread maker post first do not just read the title only.
My formula to know an ICO will be successful or not: solid team and appropriate field + lawyer whose track record is reliable + whiterpaper clear and detail + has hq.

There is no way of verifying whether who the team members are actually, they may post social media accounts, photos and links to somewhere else but that's not an assurance whether those links are real. What you could do however to check whether the team may not be scamming is to identify who the advisors are and whether the names are reputable, some ERC token ICOs are supported by huge names like Vitalik himself or maybe Roger Ver.

i dont think ico is the future, but eth is

Without ICOS, what is the value of ETH?

ICOs are sure to have more futures as everyone tends to prefer new ones and get rid of the old and this often happens in our daily lives. My advice is to invest in potential ICO projects as it will benefit us in the future

Looking at the current popularity of ethereum, you can expect ethereum to show amazing amount of growth in future. Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts which makes it one of the most suitable platforms for hosting ICOs.
The team of ethereum is very strong. Vitalik is the creator of Ethereum and he is a Blockchain enthusiast. Ethereum has shown good amount of growth till now Ms you can only expect a brighter future. I think within 3 year, price of ethereum would be above 2000$ mark.

How can it help business? All cryptocurrencies there is one major drawback. It is their volatility. Lending business is generally not possible under such conditions. Trading is also not profitable because no one knows what will happen tomorrow. Falling prices may last for several months.

totally agree!!! it's much more affordable than btc for example in all ways.. I also invest some money in eth but i try to make for myself a  diverse portfolio

I think ethereum is one of the most popular cryptocurrency available in the market right now. Ethereum has features like smart contract and ethereum virtual machine (EVM) which makes it a very promising platform for ICOs.
Ethereum can offer very good returns in the near future as it is showing very good growth from past couple of years and I am expecting the price of ethereum to be above 2000$ in 5 years.

I think etherparty is overhyped for some reason, also it was hacked. I prefer platforms with better support and security, like Confideal, don't you think?

Confideal can be ICO I'll believe. Good choice as for me

If they are not hiding, doesn't mean it's true. I mean they wont reveal all the mechanism of its ICO, only the greatest sides.

Why? Its overhyped everywhere, seems like totally bullshit.

Yeah, it's overhyped. I could mean that they have good team and do all best to promote it. It's ok, it's business. But if it was a total bullshit - anybody wouldn't maintain such hype. People are not fools

Great post mate and I whole heartedly agree with you and your sentiment. I just wanted to add to you and say about the recent mass of airdrop coins which have been getting created and issued recently:

Many of these airdrop coins are most certainly going to simply disappear/become worthless in a very short space of time - though it is an absolute guess I predict by Christmas this year a lot of them will be weined out - and while the opportunity of a wuick buck seems really too good for many to turn down I really want to emphasise to everyone that these coins being thought up by some teenager between school days are majoritively NOT worth your ether. You're not going to get rich quick by buying, for example, a million eLTC and HOLDING (I refuse to use the term hodl).

If you really want to just throw you ETH away you may aswell just pick a user on this forum and donate to their wallet. These tokens can be great if you get in on the airdrop bt I would really advise against spending any ETH on them until the weak ones have been weined out.

While many have 'roadmaps' and 'whitepapers' they actually serve no purpose whatsoever and a little picture of their logo on a credit card does not give any indication of legitimacy.

IF you genuinely want to invest in a new coin, as mentioned by Duartefig, do your research, find a project which speaks to you , as an individual, and then keep an eye on it. Very few people have success with the whole just throw ETH at it and hope for the best method and by buying into these coins you're just giving more incentive for half assed coins to sprout up.

This is a problem for the crypto world as a whole and, in my opinion, it is one that needs to be addressed due to the fact that it is really taking away credibility from the legitimate projects out there at the moment.

I made a post before and said that we need unity right now, we need to, as a community, come together (hey hey) and recognise that, as long as we stay in this seemingly wild west phase of crypto, we will not get mass adoption and reach the goals which blockchain technology can!

No, people are fools, girl.  They just gathering around the biggest hype - like Confideal has

you can't say for sure that it's bullshit unless you try. so check out https://confideal.io

I'm not really into ethereum but think the smartcontracts were a great idea. I think eth won't be rising for a while, especially when btc is making it's run.

I think that Ether will also rally in the coming future, just like Bitcoin has done. It's ability to be outside government regulation and yet create a meaningful impact and value for people is what I believe will be the reason for it's ascent in future.

This is what Ethereum was supposed to be.. Unfortunately without massive code changes the virtual machine in eth will not be able to handle businesses apps because it does not scale. Fortunately for us EOS is going to change that with parallel processing. Its currently in ICO stage and cheaper than ever. I think Eth has seen its day for now, the smart money is going on the competitors.

i congrulate you,you talked about main trading rules.You are so right about researchs and ICO's there are a lot of people who invest his own money to unknown company.unfortunatly they learn hard

In my opinion the future of the ICO's will be in other platforms
there are better platforms like Komodo, that will run all the coins on that platform with fully Zero knowledge + atomic swaps + fiat gateways + jumblr anonymization
or Cardano, that will run regulated ICO's for more important things like government related things

Like I said, the competition is stiff. I'm in most of the competitors that are worth their salt. I have some eth too but I use it for ICOs.

ICO is really decentralized, so it does not have a single management center. However, I do not agree that in the future almost all of them will be fraud. In the near future, the states will take measures to regulate the circulation of the crypto currency. At the same time, most of them will envisage measures to regulate the process of issuing original coins (ICO) in order to prevent possible fraud and protection of the rights of investors and other persons who participate in the ICO, because indeed such a problem has matured. Therefore, in the future, I hope ICO will remain decentralized in terms of project selection, organization and implementation, but the risks of fraud in it will be diminished.

I changed my mind.
ETH is quite good. My only fear was to loose my tokens. And now, while buying ETH coins and sending it to confideal ico smart contracts, I feel very safe

I also see that we have too much scammy and foolish ICOs, and it's a biggest problem in nowadays, in my opinion. I really hope that regulations from government or self-regulated ICOs will come and we will have less amount of ICOs at all.

Firstly I was really impressed about Ethereum platform, but not now. I little doubted about it

 

As I know Confideal also adapted their product to another ecosystem - MARK.SPACE

I heard the news that Krypto the Russian ruble will build on Ethereum.

I definitely agree that everyone needs to do their own research. People are so worried about being scammed that they are losing out of so many great opportunities to invest in ICOs that offer great returns on investments. ALWAYS do your own research. Never just trust someones word.