I was just getting into crypto when nxt funding closed. How I wonder if I was one of the investors.
Same here, although I became interested in cryptos a few weeks later than you did. If it's any consolation, many of those who knew about NXT back then chose not to invest despite having the opportunity to do so and a few people even called it an outright scam and warned others not to invest (which I guess was terrible advice in hindsight):
Obvious scam but please prove me wrong
Obvious scam.
Please don't send any money to an account created 4 days ago.
Also, even if I did become involved in cryptos while the NXT IPO was still open, I doubt I would have been able to buy bitcoins, set up a wallet, navigate to the thread, and follow BCNext's instructions to send a signed message via Blockchain.info in such a short timeframe anyway.
Here's my personal favorite (emphasis mine):
So i hand over tons of BTC for a promise that i will get an unproven altcoin, that will probly be worth nothing?
Link:
http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=303898.msg3279654#msg3279654If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...
...call it a goose as that is what everyone started to refer to it as 12 months later?
But it's not a goose in that respect. We weren't using the term IPO or ICO back then, but it was the same thing. How was it different?
As discussed above, IPO/ICO are terms used by scammers with the aim of maximizing donations before delivering nothing. Hence all the "never invest in IPOs" by those that got burned. BCNext plan was:
The plan was to accumulate users, not money (remember I asked for tiny amounts?)
BCNext never called it an IPO/ICO and asked for donations to be made to a spendable BTC account so he could send the small amounts back if Nxt failed.
I don't think there will be decent amount [of Bitcoins], as I said you should send small amounts, it's just for distribution of coins.
Nxt's 'IPO' had far and away the opposite of what most people in crypto today think of. That is the main reason Nxt is referred to as an IPO in my experience, to try and create the same association with the recent IPO scams. Very few know it was the first and less still do their own research.
Nxt was capped donations with low funds raised+delivery of ground breaking technology. Most IPOs are raise as much money as possible+deliver nothing.
Fun fact: There were over 100 users who expressed an interest and sent tiny amounts to the donation address to be part of the initial Nxt distribution. Only 73 bothered to claim their stakes (eventually, initially I think it was 71). Amusing when you see trolls (no one in here) talking about Nxt as though it was always a sure thing
And.......does anyone want to guess how much BTC was raised by the NXT IPO/distribution allocation ?
"Was it a million BTC, Uncle Dave ?"
No, son, it was 21.
"Twenty-one ? You shitting me, Uncle ?"
It's the truth, kid, once upon a time crypto world wasn't full of greedy thieves, the Interwebs was free and CMC fitted on to one screen.
"Now I know you're lying, you old bastard"
Yeah, BCNext's intentions were definitely quite different from the IPO scams that were to come later. I did say in a previous post that most IPOs since NXT's have been motivated by greed. People saw the NXT IPO and realized that they had missed the boat and so they started looking for the next big thing. Scammers sensed that there was a new opportunity to rip off people hence the reason for the countless IPO scams in 2014.
Also, there were IPOs which turned out not to be scams such as those for Crypti, Qora, MaidSafe, Mastercoin, GEMZ, and Ethereum which not only resulted in the investors getting an actual product but also rewarded their investors with a handsome profit during their peaks. The term "IPO" is nearly synonymous with scams but not all IPOs are scams.
I still think that describing NXT's distribution as an IPO is the most accurate since I can't think of another term that would replace it in this sense. Nevertheless, BCNext's intent was probably closer to Counterparty's proof-of-burn model which sent coins to an unspendable address. Here's a quote by PhantomPhreak, one of the founders of Counterparty:
What does it mean when we say Initialize Balances? It may not be clear from the initial introduction above and it does sound like a new concept.
It's not a new concept. See
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Proof_of_burn.
Certainly, it's similar to what Nxt and Mastercoin did (but better).Right now no one owns any XCP, which we need a "fair, distributed and transparent" way of creating and distributing. Requiring people to publicly "destroy" BTC is a good way of doing that.
Even so, he did intend to use the funds from the IPO to promote the coin unlike Counterparty which brings it closer to traditional (non-scammy) IPOs:
4] Let's transfer tiny amounts of bitcoins to my address. More you send, more you get. Looks good to me.
5] Why send coins to my own address, not some unspendable address? I need a way to send the coins back, just in case. Or fund development of services to promote Nxt, if the total amount happens to be decent.
The raised funds will be spent for further development (for example, now I'm negotiating with guys who are willing to create a product similar to
http://bitcoincard.org/). You will not get the bitcoins back in any case so temptation shouldn't be taken into account. If you worry that you will not get NXT then go to
http://88.198.210.245:7875/ to see it's not a vaporware.
But he obviously didn't consider that part to be very important:
Nxt doesn't need 4000 BTC for a huge success, it needs 4000 participants. I agree that critical mass is important, not sure about an early adopter bonus though. First let's get something working.
And a few other interesting quotes by BCNext:
It's a terrible idea to distribute NXT equally to the first 1000 forum members. There are so many sockpuppets here.
... Looks like he wouldn't have approved of NEM's distribution. Or perhaps he was unaware of anti-sockpuppet measures.
I can not give you exact numbers. Try to assess them taking into account some facts:
1] Nxt does not require to waste electricity (no centralization of mining power around pro-miners)
2] Colored coins will lead to a revolution in finances (decentralized exchange of property in atomic transactions)
3] Instant transactions (I can't find words to explain how it's cool)
Nxt collected 1,500 USD worth bitcoins. I'll eat my hat if in half a year they won't be worth a couple of millions.
... And the prediction came true.
My stake is/will be 1 BTC worth. I will not get any NXT for free.
P.S. We are still too far from desired 250 users. Maybe we will attract more people after I show colored coins in action...
... Already mentioned in another quote above but it seems that he desperately wanted more stakeholders. I wonder why the distribution was cut short then? I understand that he idolized Satoshi but to cut the IPO short just to get a nice round 21 BTC seems a bit excessive.
I had the initial guess that you may be the same Satoshi, but I usually do not express my thoughts
I'm not Satoshi. Hell, I would say this in any case!
