Next "dot-com bubble"?

[Cormoran]

Okay, ICO's look more like the dot-com era ventures

On the other hand (just playing devil's advocate here), many dotcoms back then might have actually tried to make it but failed in the end, while what we see today seems to be more like deliberate scam attempts. Indeed, there should have been dotcoms that had never meant anything real right from the start, but the percentage should be significantly lower back in the day than it is nowadays. In a sense, people were more idealistic in late 1990's early 2000's, both investors and entrepreneurs alike. Investors weren't as greedy and cynical as they are today while entrepreneurs weren't as fishy and scammy

I wouldn't be so sure about the late 1990's being more idealistic and less greedy, but you pointed out an important factor: Deliberate scam attempts.

During the dot-com bubble the problem has huge overvaluations of companies with little to show for. With ICOs you have more of the same, with the added risk of scams attempts. Usually the latter would get filtered out early by regulations and a market of more experienced investors, but with ICOs you have neither in place. But maybe that's just my cynicism talking.

There is a big difference between the dot-com bubble and altcoins. Back then most financial magazines,papers and investment companies were pushing the investment potential of these stocks and funds. The result was millions of funds pouring in but the companies themselves did not make any profits. Now the knowledge base is between those who are aware of the products and understand the reasons behind the project. Gullible investors are not being targeted by commission hungry salesmen in financial adverts.

Gullible investors may not be targeted by hungry salesmen anymore, but they are still targeted with meaningless whitepapers, buzzwords and cookie-cutter fancy websites. I also doubt that the knowledge base has gotten much better since back then. Sure, people probably spend more time reading up on each project, but that's of little use without understanding the surrounding market, the underlying technologies and subsequently the challenges to be faced. The result is still the same: millions of funds poured into projects that do not make any profits.

That's definitely my take on the huge ICO craze; people are buying into businesses that basically don't exist because they like the fact that the initial offering is crytopcurrency-based. The people selling these definitely aren't licensed investment advisers at this point. In fact, they're still prohibited from suggesting that their customers invest in cryptocurrencies; when I invested in bitcoin I mentioned it to my financial adviser and he was quite interested, enough that we had an hour-long conversation about it. He's invested in it a little bit himself, but whether he wanted to or not it would have been illegal for him to suggest to me that I invest in something that's not a legally-sanctioned security or something similarly licensed and regulated. The bubble aspect of it isn't going to stop me, of course, but it's going to limit how much actual cost basis I have at any given time. If the trends continue it should be quite possible to build up a larger stock of cryptocurrencies by ordering miners with previously-acquired coins, and the coins acquired will continue to appreciate until we all end up with bubble gum all over our faces. That should give plenty of opportunities for profit with very little initial investment if you play your cards right and make sure to know what you're investing in, and the alternatives and challenges, before you jump in. Sound advice on any investment market, of course, but even more essential with cryptocurrency. Don't be one of the people who bought the Useless Ethereum Token without knowing what it was, no matter how much of a jump in value it's taken since it was first introduced as being the most useless piece of vaporware to ever hit the market.

[Pearls Before Swine]

I tend to agree with OP's opinion on this one.  I also think this
market we're in resemble the precious metals market leading
up to 2011.  New money started pouring in just before silver
hit $50, and then it all crashed.  A lot of the sentiment I see on
this board is very similar (buy at any price, it can only go up, etc.)
Time will tell.

[Pab]

Dot.com and crypto is diffrent by my opinion,we have crashes almost every day on some shitico and shitcoins,in a case of shitcoins devs are developing new shitcoin i guess same happen with icp's with much more money,but few ico's wil bring his investors nice incomees and will disrupt industry

[hatshepsut93]

Altcoins and ICO's will crash when more and more people will develop technical undesrtanding of cryptocurrencies, which will lead to the conclusion that most introduced coins are just worthless clones. Even now a lot of investors buy coins not because their believe in their tech, but because they expect some quick and big pump. I don't think that this bubble will negatively affect Bitcoin, since there's nothing wrong with it - in fact it's the best coin because it has the most competent developers. And this is why it's not recommended to hodl a lot of different alts long term.

[BitFinnese]

You are not wrong, particularly about the ICO craze. I'm pretty sure most will lose money on those, though perhaps one or two ICOs will be profitable.

I agree that all this thing regarding cryptocurrency is like a dot-com buuble.  Pure speculation and no regulation,  though I believe regulation will be implemented soon on ICO's since SEC are getting aware of some bad people exploiting this ICO thing.

 

Dot.com and crypto is diffrent by my opinion,we have crashes almost every day on some shitico and shitcoins,in a case of shitcoins devs are developing new shitcoin i guess same happen with icp's with much more money,but few ico's wil bring his investors nice incomees and will disrupt industry

They are almost the same since the market behave almost the same when it was an early years of internet.  There are lots of people investing on it and the price of it fluctuates and some poor planned start-up failed just like the shitcoins of cryptocurrency.

[pinkflower]

Sorry, if this question is asked here before,but i feel that the cryptocurrency "industry" is pretty much like
internet companies back in 1997-2001.Too much optimism and no regulations.
2017 has been an awesome year for all the cryptocurrencies and all the ICOs and more and more people are buying tokens.What do we need for the next big crash?(This question sounds stupid,i know. )
Some big exchange platform hacked,or some major ICO failure?
I don`t want a big crash to happen,but we have to be prepared,anyway.

I don't think we could place the dotcom bubble on the same footing as Bitcoin

They have many common features, of course, but there are still quite a few differences as well. First of all, people invested in dotcoms since they expected them to be a real deal, i.e. they hoped that in some time all these new hi-tech companies would start producing real value as innovative goods and services. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is a purely speculative asset, and people investing in it simply hope that it will rise in value due to expanding speculation. If it doesn't, this is not something which they don't quite expect. That seems to be a major difference, i.e. no lies and thus no false hopes about the stuff people do

With BTC, I agree. Its apples and oranges if you compare real cryptocurrencies with the tech stocks of the dotcom boom. But what about the ICO projects that have been run like real companies, with all the offices, CEOs and the funding? For me they look more the same with the pump and dumps of the tech bubble

Okay, ICO's look more like the dot-com era ventures

On the other hand (just playing devil's advocate here), many dotcoms back then might have actually tried to make it but failed in the end, while what we see today seems to be more like deliberate scam attempts. Indeed, there should have been dotcoms that had never meant anything real right from the start, but the percentage should be significantly lower back in the day than it is nowadays. In a sense, people were more idealistic in late 1990's early 2000's, both investors and entrepreneurs alike. Investors weren't as greedy and cynical as they are today while entrepreneurs weren't as fishy and scammy

Im sure were also lots of IPO scams during the dotcom bubble. If you try to research about pink sheets securites, many of them were scams. Until today, the same type of scammers do the same con jobs. In the world of cryptocurrencies however, it has made scamming easier to do, thats why theres more of them in ratio when compared to IPO scams.

[laris2]

The great thing about unregulated spaces is that it gives great freedom and empowers people that seeking to do both good and bad.
When you start to regulate it, you start screwing everyone up.  You make it harder for both the people that are trying to do both good and evil.

[iamTom123]

To give you an idea of the scale, through the dot com crash in 2000-2001, over $5T (that's *trillion*) of value was wiped off the global markets. Current market cap of all crypto combined just recently passed $150B.

However the bad habits of investing without paying attention to the soundness of the underlying fundamentals (business model, team, industry dynamics, company structure) will 100% end badly – it is in the community's interest to develop and get behind quality standards and transparency best practices for ICOs.

There should be a way to establish some standards when it comes to so many ICOs in the market. It has become like an open field so that anyone can just copy an open-source cryptocurrency code, develop it a little and then market it well...viola you can then earn thousands if not millions of dollars.

I have seen some ICOs in this forum which are really bereft of any potential for growth hence we have the term "shitcoins" applied on them. In a deregulated and decentralized market, scam artists are right now celebrating because they now find a better platform to sell what they got...making money out of thin air.

We really have to be careful and we should be doing our due diligence before investing into a new offering and even before we try to also convince our friends to follow what we are doing.

[Idrisu]

We have been having some little few dump up to three to four times last year and the major thing that happened before the dump of price of major cryptocurrency, is when people bank of China  try to regulate bitcoin and others cryptocurrency. I think governments agency all over the world can cause cryptocurrency clash and people should be awear that governments and politicians did not want something that will give freedom for humanity and bitcoin and others cryptocurrency has the capacity to free humanity to get freedom from evil men.

[deisik]

Okay, ICO's look more like the dot-com era ventures

On the other hand (just playing devil's advocate here), many dotcoms back then might have actually tried to make it but failed in the end, while what we see today seems to be more like deliberate scam attempts. Indeed, there should have been dotcoms that had never meant anything real right from the start, but the percentage should be significantly lower back in the day than it is nowadays. In a sense, people were more idealistic in late 1990's early 2000's, both investors and entrepreneurs alike. Investors weren't as greedy and cynical as they are today while entrepreneurs weren't as fishy and scammy

Im sure were also lots of IPO scams during the dotcom bubble. If you try to research about pink sheets securites, many of them were scams. Until today, the same type of scammers do the same con jobs. In the world of cryptocurrencies however, it has made scamming easier to do, thats why theres more of them in ratio when compared to IPO scams.

So we just need more regulation

And while regulating cryptocurrencies themselves may not look like a good idea overall (I mean when they are already living on their own, i.e. past the ICO part of their life), regulating ICO's seems to be quite a different story (given the number of scams there). On the other hand, regulating ICO's which primarily exist as smart contracts may amount to regulating the whole thing which supports these contracts, for example, the Ethereum platform, i.e. regulating the cryptocurrency itself

[pinkflower]

Im in the same boat as you. I too hate the idea of a regulatory body overseeing everything and putting their noses where it shouldnt be. But with all the scammers having a good time taking every gullible person's money, some regulation is ok as long as it doesnt stop innovation.

[Olivious]

Sorry, if this question is asked here before,but i feel that the cryptocurrency "industry" is pretty much like
internet companies back in 1997-2001.Too much optimism and no regulations.
2017 has been an awesome year for all the cryptocurrencies and all the ICOs and more and more people are buying tokens.What do we need for the next big crash?(This question sounds stupid,i know. )
Some big exchange platform hacked,or some major ICO failure?
I don`t want a big crash to happen,but we have to be prepared,anyway.

Yes you are right the cryptocurrencies is like the internet back in 90's without regulations, but now it is being regulated and someday the bubble will pop but before that happens, cryptocurrencies will likely above or included in the top 10 market cap.

[BartS]

You are not wrong, particularly about the ICO craze. I'm pretty sure most will lose money on those, though perhaps one or two ICOs will be profitable.

I was reading an article here on the forum that only 2% of ICOs are profitable and 10% of them is a scam of clear water. I was searching carefully an ICO to invest and for now those results that I have from this investment satisfy me totally.
I doubt that some super fake ICO or hacking can finish Bitcoin and everything about it. I think only forbidding of crypto-currencies on the government level, admiring it as illegal can crash bitcoin in the mass sense, but I suppose then Bitcoin will just go in the deep internet.

It will be nice to see that article, because it is very clear to me that in ten years only a handful of coins that exist right now will be around in the next decade, the only one I know it is going to be there is bitcoin but I’m not so sure about the others, if I had to pick another four I will probably pick, LTC, ETH, XMR and WAVES.

[laris2]

Sorry, if this question is asked here before,but i feel that the cryptocurrency "industry" is pretty much like
internet companies back in 1997-2001.Too much optimism and no regulations.
2017 has been an awesome year for all the cryptocurrencies and all the ICOs and more and more people are buying tokens.What do we need for the next big crash?(This question sounds stupid,i know. )
Some big exchange platform hacked,or some major ICO failure?
I don`t want a big crash to happen,but we have to be prepared,anyway.

Yes you are right the cryptocurrencies is like the internet back in 90's without regulations, but now it is being regulated and someday the bubble will pop but before that happens, cryptocurrencies will likely above or included in the top 10 market cap.

I would agree with you on this point.

[BartS]

Dot.com and crypto is diffrent by my opinion,we have crashes almost every day on some shitico and shitcoins,in a case of shitcoins devs are developing new shitcoin i guess same happen with icp's with much more money,but few ico's wil bring his investors nice incomees and will disrupt industry

No one cares if a coin with a small market cap crashes, the top 10 coins have almost all the market cap so those crashes are completely irrelevant and only affect those poor souls that invested some money in them, but if bitcoin crashed almost all the market of cryptocurrencies is going to be affected since all alts are priced in bitcoin.

[GreenBits]

Dot.com and crypto is diffrent by my opinion,we have crashes almost every day on some shitico and shitcoins,in a case of shitcoins devs are developing new shitcoin i guess same happen with icp's with much more money,but few ico's wil bring his investors nice incomees and will disrupt industry

No one cares if a coin with a small market cap crashes, the top 10 coins have almost all the market cap so those crashes are completely irrelevant and only affect those poor souls that invested some money in them, but if bitcoin crashed almost all the market of cryptocurrencies is going to be affected since all alts are priced in bitcoin.

Yezzir. We are in a bubble, no doubt (growth is too fast) but this wont be another "dotcom" bubble. the dotcom bubble like, actually popped; a lot of those companies went away forever, that had sound business ideas and actually would have worked if not for the market downturn. bitcoin could crash, and other coins would devalue; but folks would go into the next biggest market cap coins and run up the price of those. consider bcc. people ran it up to 1k, and why? we created billions of dollars of value from an ideological split. that doesnt sound like value creation; it sounds like rampant speculation to me.

[Dart315]

Dot.com and crypto is diffrent by my opinion,we have crashes almost every day on some shitico and shitcoins,in a case of shitcoins devs are developing new shitcoin i guess same happen with icp's with much more money,but few ico's wil bring his investors nice incomees and will disrupt industry

No one cares if a coin with a small market cap crashes, the top 10 coins have almost all the market cap so those crashes are completely irrelevant and only affect those poor souls that invested some money in them, but if bitcoin crashed almost all the market of cryptocurrencies is going to be affected since all alts are priced in bitcoin.

I don't mind if BTC crash, am I wrong? It's like a salvation to the cryptomarket.

We have a more technological advanced and anonymous coins, don't we?

[BartS]

Dot.com and crypto is diffrent by my opinion,we have crashes almost every day on some shitico and shitcoins,in a case of shitcoins devs are developing new shitcoin i guess same happen with icp's with much more money,but few ico's wil bring his investors nice incomees and will disrupt industry

No one cares if a coin with a small market cap crashes, the top 10 coins have almost all the market cap so those crashes are completely irrelevant and only affect those poor souls that invested some money in them, but if bitcoin crashed almost all the market of cryptocurrencies is going to be affected since all alts are priced in bitcoin.

I don't mind if BTC crash, am I wrong? It's like a salvation to the cryptomarket.

We have a more technological advanced and anonymous coins, don't we?

If you do not care then that is your right and I’m not going to argue against but the problem If bitcoin crashed is bigger than just a coin crashing, it is a matter of trust, if bitcoin crashes then the trust in cryptocurrencies is going to evaporate, people are going to begin to question their investments in crypto, and will think if that happened to bitcoin that may happen to this other coin and then panic will increase