You are VERY wrong. There's no reason for altcoins to exist, none. The only "reason", the only idea behind them, ALL of them, is to bypass the rules of law. Everything else is just crap. That's on the philosophical side. In the practical side, the vast majority -I'd say 99%, are created with just one purpose: To rob investors. The technology is fully and permanently praised not just by the convinced but by everyone, from big corporations (IBM fully working on blockchain tech) to everyone even connected with banks across the planet. So no lack of recognition there.

But as long as fraud is rampant, obviously altcoins run out of cash available pretty quick, therefore the incentive disappears. If you want to identify a scam coin nowadays, you have only to watch one thing: How many BTC is invested in it. If it is over 200 BTC you can be 100% sure that the devs are "buying" their own coin, which means getting it for free. There are no exceptions to this rule, none. The last big draw offering, who sucked every coin left for VC were Ethereum and Supernet. After that, it doesn't make a difference what you put out there: Anything over a total of 200 (and that if it is wildly successful) is a scam. Period.

And that is why the alts are going to quickly disappear with very few exceptions. plus, there's nothing behind them. Those that look for (real) anon and "decentralized" shit or "smart" contracts, all gimmicks of no real value because they are hindered by something called LAW. And the LAW is created and paid to pursue and punish those who try to avoid taxes. Or contract killers. Or buy drugs or weapons. They (the LAW... or the law enforcers) want to control that shit because, obviously, it cannot let it in the hands of the crooks, even if many within the law are crooked also. So the idea of anything "decentralized" is an exercise in absurdity in the practical world -now or in the future- and, currently, just another scam tool -or gimmick, if "innocent"-. Same with anon. Same with "smart" contracts... when was the last time you heard of anyone being satisfied with purchasing anything or any service that doesn't have the other side fuming because it was "taken"? Never has worked in thousands of years. Never will. And that is besides the practical fact that leaving your money in the "hands" of a programmed algo is something that could beging to have "penetration" maybe hundreds of years into the future... to be quote optimistic.

I don't know if the majority of the people associate bitcoin with commodity.n If they do, that's far from bad. Personally, I see it as the best imaginable storage of value available, by leaps and bounds. As for people selling it when its price rebounds, it's called market place. And it is positive because it asserts the real value of the commodity all along. Do you think that the recent adoption -with many more coming- of BTC by giants like Microsoft and Time Warner happens at this point in time just by chance? If you do, you may be right but I am convinced that they are convinced the price of BTC has pretty much reached its lowest possible and that it will rebound and very significantly in the future, no matter -or perhaps because of them- how many people trade it and cash out the profits. I believe they are actually placing significant bets on it, all the more significant because they are -for them- minimal still, on one side, and on the other because, precisely because they are such big entities, they can afford to hold the BTC for a while, profitably, instead of being forced to convert to FIAT -for a price- instantly.

I could be wrong, of course. But I am betting on it.

This doesn't belong in here along with the nonsense and the lies of Zimbeck the Turd, but it is way more sensible and interesting that all of that crap.

A recent poll in the UK showed that more and more people is aware of the existence of BTC -first step towards actual participation- but ALL of those had heard of it mostly for the scams associated with it, which means that the adoption of BTC is progressing extraordinarily well in spite of that association, which is both remarkable and very positive for the future. A REGULATED future, mind you. There's simply no other way. Either the crooks are rooted out of digital currencies of these will cease to exist altogether within a few years. We all know the technology will indeed not just survive but thrive in fact, but no digital currency needs to be associated with it. And it won't unless the field is cleaned up in a hurry.

Well, I'm definitely determined to stay far away from the rest of this 'discussion' now, but I had to just throw this out because it seemed applicable (and depressing, I should add):

On one hand count the coins you know that have never seen significant market manipulation, and yet have a positive current value compared to 1 year ago. (This doesn't count for coins less than 2 months old... they might just be gearing up in that case).

Got both of them? (LOL j/k there might be 5... I just can't come up with more than 2).

Now on your other hand, count the coins that you've made profits on (or could have if you'd cashed out) in the past two weeks that were obviously a PnD scheme that you merely happened to get prior to the pump... if you trade much at all - I bet you've already got your five for that hand.  

The obvious point it that crypto is completely sick with these schemes... including BTC.  I'm not suggesting I have the solution - I don't.  It's clear from past history that while regulation will almost certainly not prevent all of the fraud - it will likely kill almost all of the incentive for many that are actively developing... especially in areas that by definition are completely anti-regulation in nature (like truly anon coins and decentralized markets).  

Under which laws would you regulate anyway... the UN's?  I know what the US government would say... but I also know the rest of the world is sick of us going all "super-cop" on every other country's citizens too!  That and our regulators aren't smart enough to figure out the stock market very well... I can only imagine how good they would be at regulating something they really don't get.

So free markets aren't working, anarchy isn't working, regulation won't work, etc.  What are we going to actually do about it? I realize that all markets (including regulated ones) are full of scams - not like Madoff, Worldcomm, Enron, Bear Stearns, etc. happened under the radar these past several years.

My final (rhetorical) question:  If cryptocurrencies don't change a majority (or even minority) of the downsides to fiat and traditional financial instrments... why are we here then?  Hopefully, your answer is better than mine at the moment.  

So it was a pump and dump    

actually you are more stupid than I first thought. Basically you just say that if someone make you a vague promise of a coin with marketplace with basically no intention to deliver (because this was the marketing plan Bobsurplus sold you), you will keep investing your money in them.

Sorry to be harsh, you are not an angel investor you are just a moron. Buying vague promises against investing into something real is very different, and until you become able to tell the difference. You will continue to lose lots of money (with no regret  ) over pump&dump and the false promises they use to market them.

And again, the price of the IPO was too high to be true, starting a real project doesn't justify such large amount, and actually that should be a big indication that something fishy is going on...

lol, I know it is easy to scam people, because you still believe in the coin no matter what  

The easiest way to walk away would have been to not walk in... Every project which have put large IPO were all scams (not some, just all of them...)
So if you walk in that sort of project, you know very well it will be a scam and you will be part of the scamming team.

may-be he got cold feet at some point, I don't know, but he can't say he didn't know, he always knew it was the scam. He took part of it, in full knowledge of the situation, let you being scammed in full knownledge of the situation and now tries to make you believe that things has changed, knowing it is a big lie again and he and others (ex-)team still have large amount of the coin, they will dump on you or any future "investor" going in.

So keeping his involvement in the coin, will most likely increased the amount of btc scammed from people stupid enough to believe him once again.
The project is entirely doomed no matter what he does or does not because of the huge amount of coin they still own and the fact the team split makes it even more dangerous for the investor.

So keeping the project alive will just hurt more people (not him personally  ), so even if walking away isn't easy it would be better for everyone that he walk away, as well as for you especially if you plan to put more btc in it, because they will just disappear.

Actually the only way to move on, would be to make a new coin forgetting completely about the old one (but obviously you won't like the idea  ) which is just a giant trap with too many people waiting to dump.

Sorry but you are screwed as well, and your only way to get out is to convince "investor" so you can dump on them too...
because of all that, that project has absolutely no future...

I love bagholder gullibility, you have way too much coins to see clearly how screwed you are   That's why all this scam can succeed so easily.

Bob & Gecko threatening him ans his family   Good one, are you competing for the best story telling with Gecko ?
The guy lives in Cambodia (nice to evade prosecution no matter what...) while the 2 other idiots are in Canada ( )

The way to save himself from the shit storm was to walk away from the coin period.
Not doing this doesn't mean he wants to protect the investors, it just means he wants to scam them again.

So you believed they were going to buy that BAY with BTC completely separate from the BTC received during the ICO?  And you believed they were going to buy it after the ICO was completed and unsold coins destroyed, from the open market?

See that's the problem I keep coming back to, because you continue to say that I and other investors were being protected by you - but if Steven offered you BAY at any time prior to or during the ICO... then you were, in fact, defrauding the investors.  I don't mean you wanted to defraud them, or that you designed things to defraud them - simply that your actions (at a minimum) are the very catalyst, which allowed the others to succeed in that fraud!

You keep saying that you were trying to protect the investors, but your decision created the only situation which virtually guaranteed that the investors would be the only ones that lost in the deal.  Not Bob or Ryan, not Steven, not Lin, not you - just everyone else.  

I do not dispute that you were used.  I do not dispute that you had good intentions going in.  Unlike other notable critics, I do not dispute your abilities as a dev, nor the potential of both Halo itself and the BitBay concept as outlined.  In fact, that's exactly why I decided to throw a little BTC your way to support it - despite there being warning signs all over the place.

The problem however, is that you are still partnered with Steven - and he had to know about everything, or else he couldn't have offered you a single BAY in the first place!  (He could have offered you more BTC, and let you buy your own BAY when the markets opened... that would have been perfectly reasonable - and honest).

I do feel sorry for you - and I do hope for everyone's sake that you can make lemonade out of this unholy pile of crap... but I can only come up with two possibilities, even if I assume that you are 100% true to your word now (which is vastly different than your word prior to, during, and even after the ICO):

Possibility 1: Steven is brilliant (but crooked) and was 100% aware of everything from the beginning... thus he knew you were being played - and was fine with that.  Ironically, if he does indeed see BAY as a long term play and not simply a quick buck... then he might be the perfect guy to run a coin on the business side.  After all, he figured out the one way to get everything (including you) and even get rid of all of the other partners - while still keeping control of a majority of the proceeds!

Possibility 2: Steven is utterly retarded (but honest) and easily convinced into committing crimes by strangers, stabbing his friends in the back, and destroying his own business' long-term prospects in the process.  He's also completely clueless about markets, crypto currency, investing, sales, and everything else.  If this is the case, he is the very last person on the planet to which you should continue to tie yourself to, and the last person you want running the business side of anything worth more than a cup of coffee - let alone thousands of BTC.

However, maybe there's a possibility that I'm missing... but I can't come up with one.

Oh and at least you're using a multisig wallet for what's left... hopefully that will prevent both you and Steven from making any weird deals with unknown people again.  If only the investors could hold a third sig... maybe you should work on setting up a system where holders can vote for a community representative to hold a third sig.

People need to stop investing in all ICOs!

They are too easily to manipulate by scammers. Please learn a lesson from this and avoid the same mistake in the future.

I never implied anything negative.

Barabbas is most certainly a shill-- a paid shill at that. I don't think he is an alt-account of Bob- because if you look at his post history he has racked up about 35days of being online in the forums (that's total time) so my guess is it's not really an alt-account (unless this guy is beyond dedicated.)

Barabbas is not only a shill, he's definitely got his fingers in the cookie jar somewhere, he always does. He's the guy scammers hire to come to their defense when their shit goes belly up, (he was on IE's payroll, and IE was probably directly using Barabbas's account at some point.)

Bob most likely shared private info with him, because lets face it, what else does an out of work aging mexican actor have to offer? Probably through some BTC at his face, and that's all she wrote.

Scum everywhere.

thanks, but why not this thread be locked?
too much FUD is bad.

NooHack will be buying our initial supply of coins after-market for the purposes of our initial giveaways, float for the tier accounts system, and bounties.
We shall do this with a large buy order at IPO price after the coin goes live for trading.

You are free to buy at the IPO or afterwards, but do not expect the price to tumble below IPO price.