You also have to keep in mind that the bitcoinsuisse sale had fees associated with it (on top of all the complications of going through them, and not being available to US citizens). Don't feel bad if you didn't know about them or weren't able to purchase through them.

So is the starting block number not provided? Was hoping just to set Parity to the block number rather than a date/time.

I don't think the ICO will be that bad. First, they're using extra (over their goal) to buy back into BNC right? Also, once the Token Changers and ETFs open up, there's going to be a ton of trading (against BNC) going on. Regardless of what price BNC starts at, I still feel like it's going to appreciate. It's not just speculative, it has a function.

I didn't like BAT from beginning (didn't even try to get into the ICO, although now I wish I had since it looks like it was easy profit). The concept just doesn't make sense to me. I feel like it was just a way to make a quick buck off his reputation and get free advertising for his Brave browser.

I'm not sure how I feel about Ark. It seems neat, but it's hard to say where it will end up in the future. If it isn't adopted, it will just stagnate (like what's currently happening to Stratis, even with active development). The same could have been said about Ethereum in the beginning though (what helped them make their big push was super active developers and lots of partnerships/marketing).

I don't think there is one and that's why it's a gamble to invest right now. If there's a flaw with their code, or they keep pushing back the open source release date (meaning they have no intention of ever actually releasing it), faith in the project will go down and the price will plummet.

That's why people are hoping for the open source release soon. I think that's the main thing holding this project back. Once the code is released and actually checked/audited/vetted, assuming everything passes inspection, it should take off IMO.

I see a few mentions of "smart contract" although they point out their definition of it. Is it actually ERC20 compatible? It doesn't seem like it but just curious.

It's hard to hold onto STRAT as it goes sideways/slowly down, when you could just dump it, take your loss, and then make up that loss in a few hours holding ETH or another altcoin. I feel like that's why there's such a dump going on currently.

To be fair, STRAT was overvalued for where its at with development anyway. ETH has skyrocketed because it already has numerous projects in development (many with beta products nearing release status). STRAT has none of that. If you believe in the future of STRAT buy it when it hits bottom and hold it. Once real progress is made with it, you'll see the raise you're looking for.

Oh, sorry I misunderstood. I thought it was a 1-time $10 fee (so I was thinking eventually, once everyone paid for access, your revenue would dry up). Thanks for the clarification.  

BB looks interesting, although it's not THAT undervalued (you could turn a nice profit if it ever makes it into the top 10 market cap, but you could easily make just as much just buying and holding onto ETH at its current rate of growth).

Is it an ERC20 token? I see a lot of mentions of "smart contract" but nothing about the token type.

There are actually a few sites out there that already try to do similar things:

http://icorating.com/
https://icotracker.net/
https://tokenmarket.net/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI9POyyP-f93JHfkhr2ma2g/

Having said that, competition doesn't hurt and if you actually dedicate a fair amount of time/effort to it, it could be a nice alternative. I'm not sure about your business model though. Usually for that kind of work you'd ask for a subscription (similar to Consumer Reports or what not). That can evolve over time I suppose though.

I'll take a token and check it out. Best of luck to you.

I remember when ETH was first getting started and people said they felt like it was pumping too fast and was a bubble and would be corrected. Of course the DAO hack happened and what not, but you'll always have doomsayers. Will it eventually drop some? Very likely. When? If you knew that, you'd be rich (sell off most of your holdings, and short the rest for maximum profit).

STRAT is being corrected. If you believe the project has a future (it likely does, hence why it was pumped so high in the first place) then buy into it once it hits bottom as it'll likely never be cheaper than that again.

WAVE I'm not sure. Although it's seen decent growth lately, it's also been going sideways. It could break either way so it's hard to say if an investment (now, at this moment) is wise or not. I know personally I don't like its NXT roots, but I have to admit it will likely be a great performer in the future.

ETH has seen such huge gains lately it's hard to recommend anything else, if we're talking purely short-term profit.

Long-term Waves and maybe Stratis have a chance to really take off. Unless they approach ETH's market cap you're not going to see huge gains from them though.

Bancor, Status, and CoinDash are the ICOs I have my eye on. Bancor could replace exchanges altogether once they're fully launched, Status lowers the barrier to entry massively and provides a portal for all the other ETH projects to really shine through, and CoinDash will likely become the preferred way to interact with exchanges (especially since it has a feature similar to Iconomi, where you can copy a popular trader's moves).

I'm pretty bullish on the ICOs since they have the greatest profit yield (IF successful), followed by ETH, and then some other projects with potential (Waves and etc.). I've got some pocket change in some long-shots (DNotes, Tokes, Plutus, etc.) that I may see massive gains on, or may not ever see anything on. That's just the way it goes.

I think Stratis's issue is it gained too much value too fast. Yes, it's had nice historical gains and yes, it has a solid foundation but it still hasn't actually delivered anything.

In other words, Stratis was overvalued and due for correction. Whatever it drops to I think will be its true value and its new base. So if you actually believe in it and its future I'd go ahead and invest at that point.

If you're in it purely for profit though, it's hard to recommend investing in it at all right now (unless they're close to a landmark release, I'm not sure the Breeze Wallet counts). With the gains that ETH itself has been making, I feel like you'd see more profit just sticking with ETH over STRAT right now.

Parity also supports ICO tokens as well as any existing ERC20 token. For ICOs you just have to "Watch" the "Contract".

I see a lot of people voting for MEW and not many mentions of Parity. Are there any real pros/cons between the two or does it just come down to what people are used to using? I'm currently using Parity and I'm fine with it (love the interface, lots of nice features as well, also a Chrome extension to function like MetaMask).

I'm usually pretty bullish on unique altcoins that are undervalued and have an active community. However, for some reason I just can't get myself to jump on Xtrabytes. Maybe it's because most people who talk about it just seem like shills and can't really qualify why Xtrabytes "is the future".

Who knows though, maybe it'll skyrocket and I'll look back at this post and wonder why I didn't just jump in while it was cheap. That's just the way it goes I guess lol.

I like Parity personally. The transfer on block feature is useful for automating the ICO process. Pretty nice interface as well.

ICO wise my sights are set in Bancor, Status, and CoinDash. Bancor could eliminate the need for exchanges, Status lowers the barrier to entry in the crypto space, and CoinDash offers a lot of neat investment tools (including copying popular traders' calls, similar to Iconomi).