I just came across this news about a Brazilian company that now accepts 3 cryptocurrencies (BTC, BCH and LTC) to book their tickets. The payment method is quite simple, just with a code in a screen, no complex technologies nor terminals. It is unclear how they handle network congestion and how many confirmations are required.

This is the source

I also seem to recall that there is an airport in Australia accepting crypto and at least one airline, but I don´t remember which one.

If anyone from Brazil could comment on this news it would be nice.

If you find a Project or ICO that looks scammy, what steps do you take to warn the community? Do you just ignore and go on to the next one?

Would it be wrong to open a thread were people could link messages that they think deserve merit and did not get any, including their own post or anyone´s??

A lot has been said about mining and about the electricity consumption of the activities related to bitcoin mining. However, I have thought of the alternatives and how other systems produce not just energy waste, but also plenty of useless work and "human waste".

To have a network that can ensure the completeness of transactions, the global accessibility and all the features that bitcoins, and many alts, have at the moment, would probable produce a huge carbon footprint. Just think of the VISA system or the banking system... the amount of people working on it, the waste of commuting to works, the infrastructure.

Thinking of all that, would you still say Bitcoin is bad for the environment?

I am not making an accusation here, these business could potentially be legitimate but I would like to know your comments:

A proposal for a lottery

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2827625.msg28975672#msg28975672

A project that mixes social networks, payment and every buzzword out there. This is all over the forum with various ANN threads.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2748393.0


What is wrong with these projects?

They want to have a market cap of 100 million and more than 7 BILLION respectively right from the start.

How?

Launching lots of tokens and selling only a few for a relatively high price.

Example:

The lottery project issues 100 million tokens and sells a small amount for 1 USD. The theoretical Marketcap is 100 Million. The sad reality is that every dollar you put into it is basically lost, because that is unlikely to be true.

The other project is even worse. They intend to have a market cap of more than a Billion USD. Investing on these gives you exactly the same result: loss of all investment unless they became the next Facebook.


The only unlikely possibility is that these business were actually worth 100 million and 7 billion. Do you think they are?

[What does this mean for you]

This post intends to explain what is dilution and why you should care about it. I write it because I think that many people are just throwing their hard earned money away on certain ICOs and that makes scammers come in mass to the crypto space.

Dilution is the effect of distributing your money (or ether or whatever you invest with) across all the tokens issued. With an example:

a) ICO IAreGood will issue 100 tokens. 40 of them will be sold and 60 kept. Each token will cost 1 dollar.

We will end up with 100 tokens of market cap backed up by 40 dollars of investment. The objective fundamental value of the token would be 40/100 -> 40 cents.

b) ICO MeUrBad will issue 100 tokens. 10 of them will be sold and 90 kept. Each token will cost 1 dollar.

We will end up with 100 tokens of market cap backed up by 10 dollars of investment. The objective fundamental value of the token would be 10/100 -> 10 cents.

What does this mean for you: If you invest in (A) you are paying a extra of 60 cents per token. If you invest in (B) you are paying 90 cents extra per token.


This is a fundamental valuation, this is independent of how good the project or team. Your valuation may be much higher because the project is great, etc... Mabe MeUrBad could even be a good investment if they have, I don't know, Elon Musk in the team.

When does dilution affect your earnings? The moment the company starts selling their tokens to finance their operations. More offer, less price for you.

IN PRACTICAL TERMS

AVOID PROJECTS THAT DON'T BURN REMAINING TOKENS

- Unsold tokens must always be burned. Alternatively, they would have to be airdropped to investors pro-rata (proportionally to the investment they have made). If not, dilution increases further and you will not know by how much until the ICO is finished.
If not, the ICO team are keeping the tokens and that increases the dilution of your investment.

CONSIDER VERY CAREFULLY PROJECTS THAT SELL A LITTLE PERCENTAGE OF THE TOKENS

- The dilution is enormously increased if they only sell 10% or 20% of the tokens. The project would need to be extremely good to give you profit.

Please, let me know your views and how to improve this explanation.

[IN PRACTICAL TERMS]

This post intends to explain what is a hard cap and a soft cap on an ICO and why you should care about it. I write it because I think that many people are just throwing their hard earned money away on certain ICOs

- Soft Cap: If the ICO does not rise at least this amount the project will not go ahead. You should get reimbursed in that case.

- Hard Cap: If the ICO rises this amount, it will stop accepting funds.

What should you understand to make sense of this and avoid throwing your money away:

A project must have a maximum and a minimum viable budget. If it is too low the project is at risk because there are not enough funds for it, so if the Soft Cap is not achieved is better not to start.
 
You may think that there is no need for a "hard cap" that is, the more money they rise the better. There are two reasons why this is not correct. First. if a project has much more money that needed it is likely to mismanage the funds and waste money in unnecessary activities. Also the team size and ability will not be adequate. Second, the dilution and the possibility of growth. I will write a post on it later on.

IN PRACTICAL TERMS

Do not invest on a project that:

a) Does not even have a soft and hard cap.

b) Is asking for too little money. Use your judgement and see if they will have enough to finish with their soft cap.

c) Is asking for too much money. Use your judgement and see if they are asking for much more that they need or more than the tokens are really worth.

d) Hard Cap is much more than Soft Cap. Again, use your judgement, but normally a hard cap should not be more than 2x or 3x the soft cap.

Let us know about other criteria you have to validate Hard and Soft Cap.

I think it would be very interesting to have some short of crypto index, like the FTSE or the NIKKEI with the main cryptos and tokens out there to have a grasp of the market. An ideally, there could be some secondary indexes.

I have observed that among the many bounty signatures out there many high ranking members choose casinos and online gambling... Are those the ones that pay best?

I have some utility tokens in my portfolio and now I am looking for dividend tokens, that is, tokens that provide a certain return on investment by getting fees or dividends, etc... I would prefer ICOs rather than tokens that are already deployed.

Some examples that are now too expensive for my taste are NEO, XEM, DASH or funds like ASTRONAUT or TAAS.

Any good opportunity out there to go into a dividend providing token?

Are there any bitcoin based credit cards? No pre-paid or anything, just direct bitcoin.

Hi, I would appreciate comments from users as I am about to open an account and don´t know much about it