I think regulations will bring some calm to a very chaotic situation. I read somewhere (I'm too lazy to find the reference) that there are about 60 new ICOs a week. Many of those are on face value not really worth anything - some of the ideas don't make much sense and the link to blockchain is tenuous at best. So in this regard, regulation in the ICO space will calm things down and hopefully eradicate the scams.

However, I don't believe regulation will be easy to implement, mostly due to the entire system being decentralised. It will be virtually impossible to police unless the entire world's countries agree to implement the regulations.

In reality, we will likely see a mass correction through self regulation. People will become aware of the pitfalls and and the dynamics at play, and understand the pros cons of an ICO more pertinently. If there are government imposed regulations, it will probably fall along the same lines as anti money laundering and KYC laws, with guidelines for both backers as well as companies offering the tokens.

I think right now, however, the more conservative amongst us are hoping some sort of regulatory framework will be published to at least take away some of the uncertainty.

If your lose your wallet, the cash inside will be lost along with it. At least with a crypto wallet you can back things up -- unlike a physical wallet holding your fiat cash.

Erm, by not paying?

Should be worth looking at. That said, I don't think one event is going to get ripple to shoot the lights out.

USDT is a crypto tethered to the US Dollar. So 1 USDT == 1 US$.

Definitely. But that's true for most everything. The worlds biggest brands still spend fortunes on branding, even though their brands are ubiquitous. Just think of car brands, cola/soft drink brands, beer brands. Many of those are so universally known that marketing them are almost redundant, yet their marketing budgets quite often make up the largest proportion of their total budget.

Given the hype around ICOs and the huge amount of competition that has flourished in the space in such a short time, often the only differentiator between one and the next will be the marketing campaign. Realistically, the target market of ICOs is still fractional, given that most of the participants in the crowdsale portion of the ICO are folks like us that are playing the still very young cryptocoin landscape.

I love Waves and what they do, but this notice regarding Waves on Cryptopia makes me a bit sad:

Thanks guys. I'll chalk this one up to experience and move on

I've been stalking this forum for a while, and decided to register to get the community's thoughts on an idea.

First some background. For the sake of full transparency: I am the head of tech at a KYC company in South Africa, and we're busy building an attestation service onto the blockchain which is launching pretty soon.

However, this idea is not part of that company and I am not representing them here. Instead, I am going to be embarking (shortly) on a personal project that I am trying to get funded (I've personally funded about 15% of it so far).

So the idea: I am a very keen DIYer, always looking to build things, and my latest personal project is to build a sports-fishing boat. The cost of such a project is vast, and I will be pulling in extra labour if I can get some additional funding to establish a business for some unemployed friends/family.

First a few assumptions...

1. About 900 man-hours will be used to construct the boat. This equates to 54,000 minutes (you'll see why this is important)
2. Equipment/tools purchases of R30,000.00 is still needed.
3. The total materials cost is quantifiable - and is currently estimated at R366,000.00
4. Payment to suppliers must be in a fiat currency
5. Payment to labourers can be in crypto currency
6. Each employee will be a contractor, therefore responsible for their own taxes
7. The company will be split into two after the boat is completed: half will run a fishing charter out of cape town, and the other half (if viable) will build similar fishing boats to order.
8. I am personally invested in this project and if it fails then I make a significant personal loss.
9. South African currency is ZAR and median minimum wage in the construction industry for the necessary skill level is = R40.47 per hour (about US$3.07 at current exchange rate).
10. For this project (and as I believe strongly that the minimum wage in South Africa is a joke), I am aiming to pay R65.00 per man-hour of work performed (equivalent of US$4.93 at current exchange rate).
11. I intend employing 4 people.

Obviously, given the restrictions of an ICO, (can't put up equity in exchange for tokens being the most pertinent) shares in the venture/business cannot be distributed.

However, what if I were to establish an ICO that works more or less as follows:

Time is valuable, and effectively, the value backing the token would be time and materials cost as raw inputs.

1. So, to pay for labour, issue 54,000 tokens
2. Issue 396,000 tokens to cover the materials and equipment costs
4. Issue 50,000 tokens for bounties, bonuses, etc.
3. Issue a further 100,000 tokens to cover any unforeseen costs.

This equates to 600,000 total tokens. Given the base valuation of one token to one minute of work correlation (roughly), tokens will be disbursed as follows:

1. 50,000 tokens will be made available in escrow (released only once funded) for distribution either on a discounted pre-sale, bonus or bounties - in return for marketing, technical work, dev, etc.
2. 396,000 tokens will be made available on a token sale at R1.00 per token (US$0.07 at current exchange rate). Obviously this will be held in Escrow, and returned unless fully funded.
3. Once funded (396,000 tokens), the token will be listed on an exchange.
4. 54,000 will be held in escrow to pay for labour. Labour will be paid weekly over the full build period from these tokens. The contractors will be free to exchange these on the exchange on a supply/demand basis.
5. The 100,000 held for unforeseen costs will not be unloaded unless there is an absolute emergency or specific requirement to do so. In order to make use of this emergency fund, the community (backers purchasing tokens in the ICO) will be asked to vote on this action.

Important notes:

• I will not draw a wage from this project, so none of the tokens issued will be allocated to me. I am not seeking to get rich from this.
• All backers will need to pass the necessary KYC and sanctions screening.
• All accounts, payments and receipts will be made available for scrutiny.
• All wages paid will be viewable on the blockchain.
• If the 100,000 tokens for unforeseen/emergency costs is not used when the build completes, it will be allocated to the contractors and backers as a bonus.
• The build progress will be fully documented. Feel free to ask me any questions about the boat or build process

Ok then, go ahead and rip the idea apart   If you guys think this is a really shit idea, then so be it.