That's why there are 3 kinds of ICOs:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2243157

• Scams
• Crap
• Legitimate

Biggest problems with crypto community:

• Too many scammers
• Too many crap ICOs
• Too many pump and dumpers on Bitcointalk

Read:

3 Kinds of ICOs - Protect Yourself
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2243157

Do not rely solely on websites that list ICOs.

They likely do not know about all of the ICOs. Not all ICOs know about them. Not all ICOs are willing to pay to be listed.

They have methodologies that you may not agree with. Some claim to be experts, but you are likely more of an expert in your own field, whether that is medical, law, engineering or finance, than they are.

They will likely have biases, especially for ICOs originating from their country or region.

Read more:

3 Kinds of ICOs - Protect Yourself
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2243157

Yes, there are good ICOs left.

It just takes more work now to discern through all of the scams and crap.

Read:

3 Kinds of ICOs - Protect Yourself
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2243157.40

Read:

3 Kinds of ICOs - Protect Yourself
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2243157

There is a small write up on Electroneum on page 3.

Read:

3 Kinds of ICOs - Protect Yourself
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2243157

Read the write up on Kyber at:

3 Kinds of ICOs - Protect Yourself
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2243157  (page 5)

I just came across this thread:

How to create a ICO
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2255274.0

It provides a link to an article and says that after reading it, you will learn how to find good ICOs. But the article is written by Crowdholding, which is hosting an ICO.

Read my thoughts on Crowdholding in a comment above.

Read:

3 Kinds of ICOs - Protect Yourself
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2243157

Read:

3 Kinds of ICOs - Protect Yourself
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2243157

I do not know if Kyber is truthful or not. I wrote that their business model is flawed.

They have a MVP (minimum viable product), which is very good news, though I didn’t try it to confirm that it works.

Kyber’s white paper explains the problem of exchanging/converting coins or tokens to other coins or tokens.  I agree with this problem and it’s getting worse every month.

Their white paper correctly states:


Then their white paper states:


This means that they are doing exactly what they said is risky about centralized exchanges. They will be creating a honey-pot for hackers, employees or reserve managers to steal. Every reserve created by users will be honey-pots. One might argue that it’s more difficult to steal because the money is in a smart contract. That’s not necessarily true. DAO’s money was in a smart contract and it was stolen.

Also, they didn’t say where the data is stored. They did say that it will be “on-chain”. Will it be on the Ethereum blockchain? If so and if they have a lot of trades, they are going to have significant scaling issues.

They have a comparison to competitors which is good to see and should be in every white paper. However, they say that they are the only one that is secure against attacks. How can they say that? Nothing is guaranteed against attacks, not even Bitcoin. If Chinese miners collude, they can attack Bitcoin. Someone hacked DAO on Ethereum. That’s why they forked into Ethereum Classic. If someone hacks KyberNetwork’s reserve, is Vitalik going to fork Ethereum for KyberNetwork?

In 4.2 of their white paper, they state:


But their diagram shows the user sending token A to the KyberNetwork.

I hope that Kyber works. We need decentralized exchanges. But the crypto/blockchain technologies still have vulnerabilities and limitations. Centralizing money is risky. Just be aware of this risk.

Their white paper says that Vitalik Buterin is an advisor. If true, then this shows that stacking a team with lots of people doesn’t mean the ICO is flawless. If untrue, then the ICO put in a famous person without his permission.

I don't know if Kyber is unscrupulous. I don't think they are, but don’t think that unscrupulous people won’t put Vitalik’s name in their team without his knowledge. I’ve seen Vitalik’s name in many ICOs. I cannot see how he would have the time to advise so many ICOs.

Besides, Augur had Vitalik on their team and after 2.5 years, they have a beta that is barely usable.

Crowdholding claims that they have a working beta, which is good news. However, I can’t find it on their website. Have you used it? Have lots of people used it to help guide a startup to success?

Their white paper says that the problem is that too many startups fail due to lack of market need. Their solution is that funders (YUPIE token holders) will be able to tell the startups how to find market needs.

This is ridiculous. If this is the case, then companies would be asking their shareholders on what the market needs. Google, Apple, Facebook and the hundreds of thousands of companies should be asking their shareholders about market needs. They don’t. Why not? Because the shareholders do not know. The only people who will know are the end-users and customers. That’s why companies spend billions on market research, focus groups, free samples, surveys, product trials, etc., etc. The only people who know and will tell the truth are those who have to part with their money and will get enough value in return to justify it. Anyone who has studied Marketing knows this.

Let’s say that there is a startup that wants to sell Japanese seaweed snacks. How much are you willing to pay for the snacks? What would you recommend to the startup? Even if you wouldn’t eat this, how would you know others won’t? You may never have tasted it before, so you will have no idea. The only way the startup will know if these snacks will sell is if they do market research, in the right target markets, with product trials, etc.

Even if Crowdholding's idea has merit, how do you, as a YUPIE token holder, know for sure that startup companies will reward you after they succeed? The tokens are not legal contracts. You cannot get a judge to force the company to pay.

Startups take many years before they are financially successful. Most companies are still losing money when they go IPO on the stock market. Amazon is barely making any profits. Twitter is still losing money. Facebook took way longer than most companies to IPO and they barely showed a profit. Technology and growing companies rarely pay dividends. How long will you wait before Crowdholding’s startups start rewarding you?

I do not think Crowdholding is trying to scam anyone. They likely think that they have a good idea, but do not see the flaws. Most ICO buyers do not see these flaws because they haven’t spent enough time in the business world and are impressed by lots of jargon and big teams with fancy titles.

Good point.

In the long run, I think that coins will be tied to fundamentals. As an example, if Ethereum does not solve its scaling problem, ETH will not continue going up in value and might even decline. Right now, there are many tokens that serve no function. The whole purpose of buying Gnosis tokens was that Gnosis will eventually create prediction markets. If Gnosis never releases any software so that Gnosis tokens can be put into use, I cannot see how the Gnosis token will maintain value.

As mentioned in my OP:


In non corrupt countries, people grow up with lots of regulations and enforcement. Though there are exceptions, the people feel that the way to get ahead is based largely on merit. In corrupt countries, there is less regulation, less enforcement and more people trying to find ways to get ahead by working around the system. In fact, they see that the most successful people in their country, usually in their government, are those who get ahead by lying, cheating or working around the system, instead of based on merit. If you do not think this is a risk, you may be right. I may be wrong.

ModulTrade
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2240518.0


This means that they are selling a security and will be on regulators’ lists. Maybe ModulTrade doesn’t care about regulators because Russia does not have extradition agreements with other countries, but what happens if regulators ban their token in Europe or North America? Will you suffer a loss?

Countries without extradition agreements make teams feel more invulnerable. Therefore, they are more likely to lie and cheat investors from other countries, because there is little to no recourse from the other countries' governments.

I watched a video of a conference. ConsenSys was warning about selling securities. Waves’ CEO, who is from Russia, debated this and shrugged it off. Is he less concerned because the chances of him getting punished is minimal?

Russia wants to boost the crypto industry in their country. Putin's advisor ran an ICO. Is the Russian government funding Russian teams to help them maximize the money that they raise on ICOs? If so, you should be aware of this risk. Though there are exceptions, in the far majority of time, when a government tries to pick and choose companies, it’s not a good idea. The U.S. government forced taxpayers to give $535 million to Solyndra. It looked great at first and then it went bankrupt. Governments are not educated nor skilled to be Venture Capitalists, investors or stock pickers. Their money is often spent on policies to further their political or social goals.

In the extreme cases when the government tries to centrally manage the economy, they create socialism, or communism which is the extreme form of socialism. Every government that centrally manages their economy have always made their economies poorer in the long run. Think of Cuba, Venezuela, when Russia was communist, when China was communist, etc. The people who are best at picking which business will succeed or fail, are those in the free market.

Someone private messaged me and asked me for a review of:

Winding Tree
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1946065.0

They stacked their team with 6 people and 3 advisors. They should’ve been able to create 3 prototypes by now, but I do not see any.

Their white paper states:


That’s likely a lie. Every hotel I’ve stayed at, even small ones in 3rd world countries, use computers.

Then it states:


Is Winding Tree trying make us believe that travel companies communicate with the Online Travel Agencies by using fax?

Winding Tree gives a good explanation of the problem with the OTA space and the lack of competition. This sounds like a serious business problem that should be solved. I agree that there needs to be more competitors in the OTA space. But for Winding Tree to be a serious competitor is questionable. They’ll need to raise a ton of money and do more than just create a new token.

The challenge is similar to internet search and advertising. Google controls the market and makes tons of money. There needs to be more competition. But an ICO is not going to be able to compete against Google just because it creates a new token.

In order to compete against these OTAs and GDSs, you need huge CENTRALIZED systems that can store and process PETABYTES or EXABYTES of photos and other data. Ethereum’s blockchain can barely handle 200 GB because it is decentralized. Then Winding Tree would need to spend a thousand person-years of programming to build a system that has enough features and functions to compete. Then Winding Tree would need a massive budget and outbound corporate sales staff to get hotels and airlines to sign up with them. Then Winding Tree would need a massive budget, marketing staff and inside sales and support staff to market their service to consumers.

It would seem that none of their team members had worked for large companies to manage very large databases.

There have been many competitors. Does Hotels.com still run their commercials? Obviously, they haven’t succeeded.

Creating a new crypto currency does not make you a competitor to Expedia. These OTAs can start accepting Bitcoin or Ethereum if they wanted to.

This is a massive project and Winding Tree's white paper only has 6 pages on the business aspects. Any other startup in this space should have 100 pages minimally. To take on Priceline or Expedia with a 6 page explanation, is a joke.

The right solution is for the government to break up the OTAs and GDSs into multiple smaller companies, similar to what the U.S. did to AT&T a few decades ago, in order to increase competition.

Winding Tree is a very high risk project.

You can see lots of scams from all over the world here:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=83.0  (Search for “russia”)

Yes, there are scams from countries that are not corrupt and successful projects from corrupt countries. What is important is the probability and if you are willing to take the extra risk.

In corrupt countries, ethics and honesty are more lax. Does this mean that the likelihood of exaggeration or dishonesty to be greater? If you do not think so, then go ahead and invest.

In non corrupt countries, people grow up with lots of regulations and enforcement. Though there are exceptions, the people feel that the way to get ahead is based largely on merit. In corrupt countries, there is less regulation, less enforcement and more people trying to find ways to get ahead by working around the system. In fact, they see that the most successful people in their country, usually in their government, are those who get ahead by lying, cheating or working around the system, instead of based on merit. If you do not think this is a risk, then go ahead and invest.

ModulTrade
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2240518.0


This means that they are selling a security and will be on regulators’ lists. Maybe ModulTrade doesn’t care about regulators because Russia does not have extradition agreements with other countries, but what happens if regulators ban their token in Europe or North America?

Countries without extradition agreements make teams feel more invulnerable. Therefore, they are more likely to lie and cheat investors from other countries, because there is little to no recourse from the other countries' governments.

I watched a video of a conference. Consensus was warning about selling securities. Waves’ CEO debated this and shrugged it off.

Just because the ICO’s coin is on Coinmarketcap, it does not mean that they will execute. On Coinmarketcap, Gnosis is ranked 52, Qtum is ranked 14 and Augur is ranked 28.

Gnosis raised $12.5 million and their website says:


No app yet.

Qtum raised $15.6 million. I don't see anything produced on Qtum's website.

Augur had Vitalik Buterin on their team. After Satoshi Nakamoto, Vitalik is the most desirable person in the universe to have on an ICO team. After raising multiple millions and after two and a half years, all they’ve released is a simple beta that is barely usable.

Even if there are no obvious scams from Russia, it doesn’t mean that most of them are good ICOs.

Is the Russian government funding Russian ICOs to help them maximize the money that they raise? If so, you should be aware of this risk. Though there are exceptions, in the far majority of time, when a government tries to pick and choose companies, it’s not a good idea. The U.S. government forced taxpayers to give $535 million to Solyndra. It looked great at first and then it went bankrupt. Governments are not educated nor skilled to be Venture Capitalists, investors or stock pickers. Their money is often spent on policies to further their political or social goals.

In the extreme cases when the government tries to centrally manage the economy, they create socialism, or communism which is the extreme form of socialism. Every government that centrally manages their economy have always made their economies poorer in the long run. Think of Cuba, Venezuela, when Russia was communist, when China was communist, etc. The people who are best at picking which business will succeed or fail, are those in the free market.

Yes, of course, investors should spend more than 5 minutes looking at a website. The problem is that many do not and if they do, they do not understand technology, blockchain or business sufficiently.  In which case, they can reduce their risk by using filters:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2243157


As mentioned already, just because they can afford to hire people, it does not mean that its a good idea or that they will execute. When the U.S. government threw $535 million at Solyndra, they raised more than any ICO and I can guarantee you that they had a much more impressive team than any ICO. But they still went bankrupt.

Someone private messaged me and asked me for a review of:

ModulTrade
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2240518.0

If this is executed well, it has potential. However, there are several projects trying to do something similar. Their video didn’t say anything special or different than what other projects are trying to do. This idea is old and has been around for a while. The key to success will be execution.

They have a “prototype” but it’s really a demo (only on the client computer), because it doesn’t execute any transactions. A demo is far easier to build than a prototype. With 11 people on their team, they should’ve been able to build 5 prototypes by now. Nevertheless, a demo is better than nothing.

With 8 advisors, they have 19 people on their team. Most of them probably do not do much. They’re stacking their team to fool you.

They have lots of competitors, but their white paper does not compare them. This is misleading. Even the existing way of doing international trade is a competitor. They should’ve provided side by side comparisons to competitors and explain why each of their features/functions are superior.

They plan to use Ethereum as the production blockchain. I question the viability of this. Ethereum is already getting bogged down with just ICOs. Wait until several projects get some traction in production usage. Ethereum might grind to a halt. ModulTrade’s white paper explains that this will not be an issue and they can get around this. But this is an additional risk that you’ll be taking because it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to verify ModulTrade’s numbers.

Only 40% of tokens are sold to buyers and they’re keeping 38% of the tokens, which is too greedy and centralized.

They started their idea in October 2016. Startups at Y Combinator with only 2 people on the team, build their prototypes in 6 months.

The CEO and several team members are from Russia. Not all Russian ICOs are bad, but you’ll be taking an additional risk.

On their Bitcointalk announcement, they say:


This means that they are selling a security and will be on regulators’ lists. Maybe ModulTrade doesn’t care about regulators because Russia does not have extradition agreements with other countries, but what happens if regulators ban their token in Europe or North America?

As a side note, countries without extradition agreements make teams feel more invulnerable. Therefore, they are more likely to lie and cheat investors from other countries, because there is little to no recourse from the other countries' governments.

DOVU says people will pay for car data. Who will? What value are they going to get when they can already get tons of data from a fleet of test cars. Let’s say there are, why wouldn’t they pay with BTC, ETH, USD, EUR or any other existing currency?

Request Network sounds like a me-too. Bitpay and other companies already enable online payment.

Hedge is another me-too. There are already many investment funds, and they all suffer the same problem as exchanges or DAO. By doing the taboo, centralizing, you are putting your money in a honey pot, which can be stolen by hackers or employees.

Minerva gives tokens to platforms that accept Minerva’s OWL token. But they never explain where the money comes from? How will Minerva continue giving their token away forever? Business model makes no sense.

Blockv.io’s homepage says:


This is similar to what ARToken and Datum want to do: put TONS of data onto the blockchain. This shows that they are clueless about the blockchain. At 120 GB, Bitcoin’s blockchain is already causing scaling problems.

Blockv.io’s token allocation shows that they are among the greediest teams around. Only 35% will be go to buyers. Developers and company will keep 65%. Unbelievable. Not only is this an extreme example of greed, there is no decentralization. Their team can overpower and control the blockchain whenever they want.

As I wrote in the OP:


In corrupt countries, ethics and honesty are more lax. Does this mean that the likelihood of exaggeration or dishonesty to be greater? If you do not think so, then go ahead and invest.

In non corrupt countries, people grow up with lots of regulations and enforcement. Though there are exceptions, the people feel that the way to get ahead is based largely on merit. In corrupt countries, there is less regulation, less enforcement and more people trying to find ways to get ahead by working around the system. In fact, they see that the most successful people in their country, usually in their government, are those who get ahead by lying, cheating or working around the system, instead of based on merit. If you do not think this is a risk, then go ahead and invest.

Just because the ICO’s coin is on an exchange, it does not mean that they will execute. On Coinmarketcap, Gnosis is ranked 52, Qtum is ranked 14 and Augur is ranked 28. Here is what I wrote about them in the OP:


In regards to Russia specifically, you should be aware of another risk. As I wrote in the OP:


Is the Russian government funding Russian ICOs to help them maximize the money that they raise? If so, you should be aware of this risk. Though there are exceptions, in the far majority of time, when a government tries to pick and choose companies, it’s not a good idea. The U.S. government forced taxpayers to give $535 million to Solyndra. It looked great at first and then it went bankrupt. Governments are not educated nor skilled to be Venture Capitalists, investors or stock pickers. Their money is often spent on policies to further their political or social goals.

In the extreme cases when the government tries to centrally manage the economy, they create socialism, or communism which is the extreme form of socialism. Every government that centrally manages their economy have always made their economies poorer in the long run. Think of Cuba, Venezuela, when Russia was communist, when China was communist, etc. The people who are best at picking which business will succeed or fail, are those in the free market.


Yes, the best evidence of their competency is if they have built a prototype or product.

If you read, see, learn and ask sufficiently, then you should understand the business, which means you will not be investing in a business that you do not understand.