ICO's killing crypto

[kelsey]

Recent news of the imminent closer of many Chinese exchanges is the direct result of them dealing in ICOs, I've been shocked for the longest time other countries have done so, allowing ICO's to fly under regulators radar, however its only just a matter of time.

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[XbladeX]

Recent news of the imminent closer of many Chinese exchanges is the direct result of them dealing in ICOs, I've been shocked for the longest time other countries have done so, allowing ICO's to fly under regulators radar, however its only just a matter of time.

It was obious but don't worry  goverment would ban crypto becouse some bad actrors will start using it.
This common in life excuses like terrorism pedofilia you don't realy need ICO to do that.
ICO is way to move arround IPO regulations - but for me this is ok people have freedom to fail at investment too.
ICOs are making harder life for BTC but same time people are greedy and want more ICO more x10 x3 ; ) in week this is casino sometimes.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Yeah, but none of that stuff is "killing crypto".  You've seen the scams perpetrated daily with not only ICOs, but crypto in general, and there's no way governments aren't going to start regulating that.  It's still the wild west, but it's being that less so day by day.

Also, crypto isn't being killed by anything.  The opposite is happening, in fact.  Just look at how wildly bullish bitcoin and the altcoin scene is.  Money is flooding the market, and gov't regulation isn't going to touch that unless they outlaw crypto--and that isn't likely to happen.

[Sheckley]

I don't agree. ICOs are CHANGING crypto, the way people think at business with crypto. The world of crypto is actually getting more and more complex like that, which is the opposite of death.

[skyline247]

On one hand, ICOs are taking precious market cap from what could be invested into Bitcoin.

On the other, they bring a whole new dimension to crypto that we have never seen before.

It is just such a shame they are almost always pump-and-dump scams.

[cenicsoft]

Without ICOs, there would be no Ethereum. Without Ethereum, the crypto market wouldn't have grown so fast. It's attracting a lot of capital right now.

[sunhany]

Recent news of the imminent closer of many Chinese exchanges is the direct result of them dealing in ICOs, I've been shocked for the longest time other countries have done so, allowing ICO's to fly under regulators radar, however its only just a matter of time.

I see ICO's like crowdfunding for games, in the begining people made games for fun, them business emerged and later because of all the burocracy of business people started asking for funding to make their own thing. The music industry also has a similar background, history is repeating itself, ICO's are the new crowdfunding platforms.

[nightmanisrightman]

Its a double edged sword really in this spot. We needed ICOs to get to where we are as there is no way there would be 1000+ coins in circulation. So it definitely help attract tons of

people and get them interested in cryptocurrencies. However, I do agree that they just muck up the space and cause more trouble than they are worth. Despite all of that, if you

read and choose correctly, ICOs have the ability to be quite a profitable en devour

[Spoetnik]

Yeah, but none of that stuff is "killing crypto".  You've seen the scams perpetrated daily with not only ICOs, but crypto in general, and there's no way governments aren't going to start regulating that.  It's still the wild west, but it's being that less so day by day.

Also, crypto isn't being killed by anything.  The opposite is happening, in fact.  Just look at how wildly bullish bitcoin and the altcoin scene is.  Money is flooding the market, and gov't regulation isn't going to touch that unless they outlaw crypto--and that isn't likely to happen.

That money is ponzi money.
They are here to profit period.
These are not crypto supporters.
Furthermore crypto has done nothing.
Bitcoin is barely used as intended.

Saying there is lots of pyramid scheme participants making profits does not mean the scheme coin in question is being used as intended.. Or that it is a legit scheme coin.
Let's get real.. If it's not used as a currency by non crypto nerds then it isn't one.
In other words adoption..

ETH was morphed into an ICO coin cloning platform.. Should we cheer for its success?

And we needed icos to get where we are?
Dumbest comment ever posted here. Congrats LOL

[simrac]

China ban ICOs because at china have so many company use ICOs  to make money  ,it is not helpful or useful for investors ,it is not real .
I think china  ban ICOs is good news  in china ,but they ban exchanges is not good ,we need More and more exchange where we can trade crytocurrenty, crytocurrenty was born to trade is main .
I believe A good ICO have roadmap ,company ,developer team behind .. Still have a success story .
No one or anything can kill crytocurrenty, i believe that .

[Fesatmas]

ICOs now being popular after several successful there is so many new ICOs appear and for me it's really killing old crypto coin like DOGE, LTC and DASH. I think ICO should be limited and managed properly.

[Ucy]

I guess the countries understood that ICOs can't be successful regulated so they just left it alone. If ICO was regulatable some countries would have regulated it long time ago but not a single one has.

[FarmerOak]

BAD icos are hurting crypto, but this too shall pass

[bbc.reporter]

Recent news of the imminent closer of many Chinese exchanges is the direct result of them dealing in ICOs, I've been shocked for the longest time other countries have done so, allowing ICO's to fly under regulators radar, however its only just a matter of time.

It is not all about the exchanges dealing with ICOs, it is about China's great fear on the threat and uncontrollable nature of the cryptospace.

BTCC which announced that they will close in 2 weeks does not have an ICO listed in their exchange. Why were they the first one to close down?

[Nutt]

Only bad ICO is hurt BTC.

BTC is too sensitive.

Just 1 great ICO will bring back BTC

[kelsey]

Without ICOs, there would be no Ethereum. Without Ethereum, the crypto market wouldn't have grown so fast. It's attracting a lot of capital right now.

and no ETH would be a bad thing 

as Spoetnik rightly put it "ETH was morphed into an ICO coin cloning platform"

Crypto doesn't need alot of capital right now, we shouldn't be judging the success of Bitcoin (or any crypto) on how high its priced in fiat, crypto success is about usability as a p2p currency and acceptance as a currency.

[FutureC0in]

I don't think ICO is killing the cypto currency. In fact, it starts from the new idea / innovation and people need funds to translate these into actual product that usable for public and since it may not has the fund to start hence we have this crowdfunding.

Well I do agree there are too many ICOs and some may have the intention is just to collect the monies.
Therefore, we a investor must do our part to analyze if the ICO is worth to put our hard earned monies.
And I feel, the some forms of regulation is needed to filter out those scam ICOs.

[Timeclo]

I hope that people actually read the whitepaper and do research before they invest into anything. But because cryptocurrency is still new, new investors are going to be driven by greed and profit. I think some regulation is good so that the scam ICO's don't dominate the lower end of the market.

[FutureC0in]

Nevertheless, in the crypto trading markets there are many whales that playing on the bad news, to instill our fear with the intention to collect good coin at the lowest price possible.
After the bad news is over there will be a turn to hype on the good news for the "distribution" to small player.

This is similar like in the stock trading markets, bigger fish will eat smaller fish.

[stopatnever]

On one hand, ICOs are taking precious market cap from what could be invested into Bitcoin.

On the other, they bring a whole new dimension to crypto that we have never seen before.

It is just such a shame they are almost always pump-and-dump scams.

I agree with your second comment.  ICO's are really helping provide exposure and creating new businesses that are leveraging blockchain technology.  It's a great thing for the overall industry.

However, I do think it's fine to have scams.  Anything worthwhile, will always have people trying to take advantage of the situation.  We can't prevent scammers just like we can't prevent stealing, robberies, etc.  

But it is OUR responsibility to not invest in the scams and warn the community so that the scams are minimized as much as possible and do not impact the community itself.

[joshki]

Without ICOs, there would be no Ethereum. Without Ethereum, the crypto market wouldn't have grown so fast. It's attracting a lot of capital right now.

That would be a really good thing for the crypto world right now.  ETH is being used almost solely for the purpose of scamming people.  The ICOs being run on it are almost all scams, all it's going to take is for a few of them to come crashing down and then the SEC is going to step in and regulate, and they're going to come down hard.

There are a lot of other things out there that are not scams, the crypto world isn't defined by ETH.  There are also innovations that are coming that probably won't fall afoul of the SEC.

[freebutcaged]

Scammers using blockchains like Eth to manipulate markets and launder money by investing-reinvesting, converting-reconverting to ICO tokens and back to

Eth and Bitcoin then from Eth and Bitcoin back to ICO tokens but this time into other tokens with different exchanging services focused markets to confuse all

The government agencies and regulators, and with coin mixers around their job was like a living hell for them so what they did was putting a temporary stop

Into everything until they can come up with some methods to deploy as countermeasure for those nefarious transactions.

[gwestcot]

Yeah, but none of that stuff is "killing crypto".  You've seen the scams perpetrated daily with not only ICOs, but crypto in general, and there's no way governments aren't going to start regulating that.  It's still the wild west, but it's being that less so day by day.

Also, crypto isn't being killed by anything.  The opposite is happening, in fact.  Just look at how wildly bullish bitcoin and the altcoin scene is.  Money is flooding the market, and gov't regulation isn't going to touch that unless they outlaw crypto--and that isn't likely to happen.

That money is ponzi money.
They are here to profit period.
These are not crypto supporters.
Furthermore crypto has done nothing.
Bitcoin is barely used as intended.

Saying there is lots of pyramid scheme participants making profits does not mean the scheme coin in question is being used as intended.. Or that it is a legit scheme coin.
Let's get real.. If it's not used as a currency by non crypto nerds then it isn't one.
In other words adoption..

ETH was morphed into an ICO coin cloning platform.. Should we cheer for its success?

And we needed icos to get where we are?
Dumbest comment ever posted here. Congrats LOL

Merchants are starting to accept bitcoin as a form of payment in a very rapid way so I would have to disagree that it isn't making headway. Look at the massive increase in usage in Japan and tell me that it is not being used as intended. It takes time to overtake the status quo system and especially when it involves governments that are desperate to maintain control.

[gidaahmad]

This year I think a lot of ICOs are popping up. Not a few ICOs that collect tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars. Sometimes I am confused, what is the money for, what for a noble cause, and why investors dare to spend that much money? However, I think again that ICO is indispensable as a creative business step. So, as long as no harm, ICO is still a shortcut for people who want to try to invest without having many requirements.

[joshki]

This year I think a lot of ICOs are popping up. Not a few ICOs that collect tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars. Sometimes I am confused, what is the money for, what for a noble cause, and why investors dare to spend that much money? However, I think again that ICO is indispensable as a creative business step. So, as long as no harm, ICO is still a shortcut for people who want to try to invest without having many requirements.

ICOs, in general and of course with some exceptions, are a way for scammers to rapidly collect money -- that's really the long and short of it.

[V1saya]

Recent news of the imminent closer of many Chinese exchanges is the direct result of them dealing in ICOs, I've been shocked for the longest time other countries have done so, allowing ICO's to fly under regulators radar, however its only just a matter of time.

Because ICOs are really getting dirty. A sort of regulation has to be employed to try sorting out ICOs offered in public. Look at how many ICOs end up as mere scams after millions and millions of dollars worth of investments have been carted away. This has to stop of course, one day soon.

[cenicsoft]

Merchants are starting to accept bitcoin as a form of payment in a very rapid way so I would have to disagree that it isn't making headway. Look at the massive increase in usage in Japan and tell me that it is not being used as intended. It takes time to overtake the status quo system and especially when it involves governments that are desperate to maintain control.

You're right about it taking time for people to adopt a new technology. I'd argue that the speculative nature that dominates the bitcoin discussion currently helps draw more attention to crypto currencies in general. This additional awareness is leading to more interest from the general public and will ultimately benefit the market as a whole.

Just like porn drove the adoption of many technologies, bitcoin speculation may help drive it's adoption as intended.

[red4slash]

Recent news of the imminent closer of many Chinese exchanges is the direct result of them dealing in ICOs, I've been shocked for the longest time other countries have done so, allowing ICO's to fly under regulators radar, however its only just a matter of time.

Because ICOs are really getting dirty. A sort of regulation has to be employed to try sorting out ICOs offered in public. Look at how many ICOs end up as mere scams after millions and millions of dollars worth of investments have been carted away. This has to stop of course, one day soon.

Yes your words are very wise. Ico needs strong rules to avoid fraud like before. The Ico does not kill crypto but it makes them grow quickly. We need strong rules so that scam ico will not exist in the world. But is it possible to create decentralized crypto rules?

[richjohn]

Recent news of the imminent closer of many Chinese exchanges is the direct result of them dealing in ICOs, I've been shocked for the longest time other countries have done so, allowing ICO's to fly under regulators radar, however its only just a matter of time.

Because ICOs are really getting dirty. A sort of regulation has to be employed to try sorting out ICOs offered in public. Look at how many ICOs end up as mere scams after millions and millions of dollars worth of investments have been carted away. This has to stop of course, one day soon.

Yes your words are very wise. Ico needs strong rules to avoid fraud like before. The Ico does not kill crypto but it makes them grow quickly. We need strong rules so that scam ico will not exist in the world. But is it possible to create decentralized crypto rules?

Indeed! Governments are only responsible for safeguarding citizens. If they fail to do so then they are the one who are questioned. Many ICOs start only with the intention of scamming people. Certain kind of regulations are indeed needed. But banning is also not right according to me. A chance should be given to people to start their own ventures but under strict regulations.

[minerja]

ICO's are not a bad thing themselves, but the way we have all let our greed creep in is the main problem. I as much as the next guy can't resist the next get rich scheme.

The scam ICOs have grown massively over a short period of time, and the crypto community should have come together to try dampen it down, and clean out the bad ones.
We the members of this forum must take some responsibility. Even if we had only established a seperate "ICO only" section, just to keep the dross away from the other sections.
Reading through here now it is so hard to see the wood for the trees.

Unfortunately the crypto communities failure to internally address this, was always going to lead to government intervention, and now we have put crypto on the table in the worst way.
Now we are forcing governments to make public decisions, and we all know how poor they can be at that.

This is definately not the death of crypto, rather the sanitising of it. I know this will bring forward the UKs Bitcoin tax laws into weeks rather than years now.
They were only considering taxing bitcoins, but with all this drama they will use it to encompass all coins. Or, they will only encompass bitcoins and outlaw all other crypto (Knowing the UK, this will be their choice)

My thoughts are simple, give ICOs a seperate section, and monitor them very very closely, perhaps even limit the number of new ICOs published per week, keep a clean house, cos if not history shows it will be cleaned for us, and we will have to live with the results.
J

[coindose]

I think instead (or perhaps even in addition to it if they must) of banning left and right, governments should send more efforts into educating people about money, finance, risks, how to do taxes. It should be started early in schools in my opinion but you don't really see that anywhere in the world. I for one want to spend my money freely, if I think something is worth my money and I do it from a position where I know there are risks, not just rewards and if I fuck it up, it's my fault first and foremost.
So I don't think ICO's are killing crypto, I think people's greed and lack of research and risk control is.

[Spoetnik]

Without ICOs, there would be no Ethereum. Without Ethereum, the crypto market wouldn't have grown so fast. It's attracting a lot of capital right now.

and no ETH would be a bad thing 

as Spoetnik rightly put it "ETH was morphed into an ICO coin cloning platform"

Crypto doesn't need alot of capital right now, we shouldn't be judging the success of Bitcoin (or any crypto) on how high its priced in fiat, crypto success is about usability as a p2p currency and acceptance as a currency.

They don't care.
They are here to profit.. and nothing else.
So that has gradually morphed crypto into a sleazy shithole.
They don't get why ICO's are bad no matter how many different ways it is explained to them.
Think about it people.. why wasn't ICO's used years before ?
It was maybe 7 years i am estimating that the scene dropped mined coins and went with ICO's
Why were we mining them ?
You know guys there is a reason 
And there is a reason why i say *ALL* ICO's are scammy too.

[cenicsoft]

Whether or not you want to blame Ethereum for creating an ICO craze, it makes more sense to create a token on top of an existing mined currency. I don't see the need to continually create mined coins. It's hard enough to get people to support a new coin, let alone get them to dedicate computer resources towards it.

Many ICO coins will become worthless. Until they all are worthless, people will continue to participate.

The ICO projects that will be successful will be from companies offering attractive products that gain adoption. As long as there's at least one successful ICO coin, others will continue to try. Don't hate on ICO issuers for trying. Get mad at the people for buying.

[James_CanYa]

Building ICO's on top of Ethereum is an awesome opportunity for businesses and consumers - Never before has the internet been able to value projects from the bottom up, anyone anywhere is able to buy a projects token.

In saying that the level of ICO's in China grew to a ridiculous level - Here's a perspective from inside the Chinese ICO community explaining the situation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx7qjIpQHgc&t=

Imo the ability for projects to conduct an ICO that allows the world to get involved and early access to their platform is some impressive utility - Though not even project is going to provide real services/utility to their users and those projects won't last long.

[pawanjain]

At the end of this race, only the established coins will survive and the shitcoins will get wiped out. I will tell you an example of what happened recently in India. The government of India demonetized the 1000 rupees and 500 rupees note and banned it from being a legal tender. They took this decision so that they can wipe out all the duplicate notes in the market and to clear out black money and corruption. The plan worked out quite well and the cops caught many in this case. It was just a matter of time and so is this. The ban on ICOs is a good thing which will wipe out the bad from the market and only the established ones will raise their flag at the end.

[StockBet.com]

There is a lot of talk of ICO scams.  Has there been a study to show the percentage of ICOs that are scams?  Is it 90% or 10%?

I would think that the majority of projects are bad ideas.  Everyone is trying to put anything and everything onto a blockchain, including the kitchen sink.  Most of them are trying to squeeze square pegs into round holes.

Crypto currencies are excellent for some applications, but not all.

Many of the project teams cannot prove that they can develop.  They have fancy titles like "CTO", but they have no software that you can run.

[Scallywag]

At the end of this race, only the established coins will survive and the shitcoins will get wiped out. I will tell you an example of what happened recently in India. The government of India demonetized the 1000 rupees and 500 rupees note and banned it from being a legal tender. They took this decision so that they can wipe out all the duplicate notes in the market and to clear out black money and corruption. The plan worked out quite well and the cops caught many in this case. It was just a matter of time and so is this. The ban on ICOs is a good thing which will wipe out the bad from the market and only the established ones will raise their flag at the end.

I agree with you , all these uncapped ico's are fucking the market up.
Most coins don't need that much but It is pure greed from both sides.

[crazylikeafox]

There is a lot of talk of ICO scams.  Has there been a study to show the percentage of ICOs that are scams?  Is it 90% or 10%?

I would think that the majority of projects are bad ideas.  Everyone is trying to put anything and everything onto a blockchain, including the kitchen sink.  Most of them are trying to squeeze square pegs into round holes.

Crypto currencies are excellent for some applications, but not all.

Many of the project teams cannot prove that they can develop.  They have fancy titles like "CTO", but they have no software that you can run.

It boils down to who cares as long as I make money. This would separate the idiots from their money and the lesson would be a hard one for them.

[jlp]

I can believe that many ICOs in China (and other countries) are scams.  Even the Chinese government is saying so.

Check out this ranking of countries based on corruption:

https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_index_2016

China is corrupt.  Russia and eastern Europe is even more corrupt.

If a country is corrupt, it means that their people are more prone to exaggerate or even lie.

That's why I see so many ICO teams stacked with people with nice titles like "Blockchain Developer"  or "Blockchain Expert" who have no skills nor experience related to technology, programming or blockchain.

[billyj111]

I think that cryptocurrency and ico should simply be regulated but within reasonable limits

[cryptoking710]

I think that cryptocurrency and ico should simply be regulated but within reasonable limits

Totally aggree with you. If governments bring in mild regulation then it can only be good for the whole market as a whole.

Regulation=Acceptance=Profits

[European Central Bank]

icos are the one thing that'll bring unacceptable heat on all crypto. if they had never existed i believe crypto would grow organically without interference in most places.

the chinese clampdown is almost certainly because of icos but it's also screwing everything there. if icos hadn't exploded after their exchanges were back online after the shutdown we wouldn't be dealing with this current crap.

they're a cancer on the scene. ideally we would've seen a succession of pathetic failures that would scare buyers away, but maybe it's gonna take some heavy handed action from regulators.

[nkarm1]

This year, there are so many ICOs that usually hits millions of dollars in their cap. And this is very healthy for the market because it brings fire. The only cancer here is only few of them just stands out and usually continue their flowery words. But let's not blame only the developers, the investors also has problems that's​ why they are getting dragged by some nonsense projects. The government should focus on some actions about educating their people about investments. Not on regulating ICO and trading sites. ICO's not killing crypto.

[Dfinest]

I don't think ICO's are killing crypto, but they need some kind of regulation in the future. Maybe the governments will step up.

[Hyperme.sh]

On one hand, ICOs are taking precious market cap from what could be invested into Bitcoin.

They're taking focus away from those who have genuine innovation, yet are totally ignored.

On the other, they bring a whole new dimension to crypto that we have never seen before.

It is just such a shame they are almost always pump-and-dump scams.

Because those of us who want to build a long-term viable project, do not want to be involved with issuing/trading/promoting illegal MLM scams and illegal investment securities.

Regulators are going to need to send a lot of people to jail to get sanity back into crypto R&D. Yet I suspect TPTB are quite satisfied with allowing crypto to destroy itself with scams and render it's participants in jail after the global economic meltdown 2020ish.

If government doesn't get any profit from it, than it's a SCAM.

Yet regardless of whether securities regulation is dumb or beneficial, the fact is that those developers who are serious will not issue ICOs because of the legal uncertainty, thus predominantly the only ones issuing ICOs are scammers. Even if some few Ethereum, NEO, or Tezos developers might be sincere and skilled, the ones issuing the tokens for them are either well connected with the parasites you despise, else they have a criminal mindset and disregard securities regulation risk not only for themselves but also for all those who trade the tokens and for the future of the token itself.

Thus, iCOs are not helping to achieve any goal of defeating the parasites who control the governments, and instead of providing incrimination fuel for them to take control in the future.

[nappoleon]

I don't think so. What's killing crypto is dumbness and greed.

[Hyperme.sh]

I don't think so. What's killing crypto is dumbness and greed.

ICOs are dumbness and greed.

[Lpim01]

Actually not all ICO have bad intention towards bitcoin but most of them are destroying the image of bitcoin community.
Joining ICO is not a bad idea since it could rewards us for promoting their site, but see to it that it will not make a non-sense campaign that might affect the crypto world.

[goku19]

I dont understand this how can ICO killing crypto...or i will say it is giving empowerment to crypto-currencies...introducing new coins with concepts..sorry if i am wrong but thats what i understand

[Hyperme.sh]

I dont understand this how can ICO killing crypto...or i will say it is giving empowerment to crypto-currencies...introducing new coins with concepts..sorry if i am wrong but thats what i understand

Why haven't you read everything I have ever written?

[CASPER_TEAM]

regulation here is only to protect ordinary people who dont give a fuck what crypto is, but still trying to invest.

[nappoleon]

I don't think so. What's killing crypto is dumbness and greed.

ICOs are dumbness and greed.

While that is true, I also believe in financial inclusion and alternative funding.

[kamBlanV]

On one hand, ICOs are taking precious market cap from what could be invested into Bitcoin.

On the other, they bring a whole new dimension to crypto that we have never seen before.

It is just such a shame they are almost always pump-and-dump scams.

I agree with your second comment.  ICO's are really helping provide exposure and creating new businesses that are leveraging blockchain technology.  It's a great thing for the overall industry.

However, I do think it's fine to have scams.  Anything worthwhile, will always have people trying to take advantage of the situation.  We can't prevent scammers just like we can't prevent stealing, robberies, etc.  

But it is OUR responsibility to not invest in the scams and warn the community so that the scams are minimized as much as possible and do not impact the community itself.

after so many emerging scammers and hackers that endanger ICO projects I think there must be special handling by the developer of a project. to overcome the losses to be received by investors.

[Lieldoryn]

All crypto currency is a dangerous investment. It does not depend on China or any other country has banned the use of cryptocurrencies. It seems to me that the main problem is the large number of speculative capital. Crypto currencies have no damper and is therefore a Paradise for speculators. As soon as speculators will withdraw their capital ordinary users will be ruined.

[aztecminer]

I dont like ICO, many of them just use a whitepaper to stolen our money.
Then gone.

[vvadym]

I don't agree. There are a lot of successful ICOs. Only scam ICOs hurt cryptocurrency.

[Hyperme.sh]

I don't think so. What's killing crypto is dumbness and greed.

ICOs are dumbness and greed.

While that is true, I also believe in financial inclusion and alternative funding.

The link of mine you quoted explains that the question of whether securities regulation is harmful or beneficial is irrelevant to the fact that it encumbers the ICO issued tokens with securities regulations that vary in every nation, means those tokens can become illegal to use in the future in different countries. It is multiple layers of legal jeopardy and legal uncertainty. Why would any group of developers that was serious about the long-term viability of the project and tokens they are working on, encumber their project and token with such legal jeopardy? I also explained in my posts over the past days that if instead they issued the tokens with proof-of-work or economic equivalent, the tokens would not be so encumbered and afflicted. I conclude because they do not care about the actual outcome and are unnecessarily just scamming to get money. I have explained how to raise money legally without afflicting and encumbering the tokens with liability of being securities.

I also explained upthread, that the problem is that serious developers such as myself, will not take on such legal risks when in fact I don't need to in order to raise money legally. Thus I conclude that those who risk incriminating themselves with ICO issues, either believe that with crypto they can destroy the nation-state (or that somehow nation-states will abrogate their duty to protect citizens from MLM scams and illegal securities issuance) or they have criminal mindset that does not calculate properly the long-term repercussions of their actions.

How will we ever move crypto into the mainstream of society with this sort of criminal and rebellious mindset? The world needs crypto solutions immediately, not after 20 years battle of daring the G20 to filter traffic on the trunk lines of the Internet and daring them to track down every ICO issuer in a Whac-A-Mole game.

A decentralized issuance such as proof-of-work entirely avoids the MLM scam and securities law. Satoshi designed it this way because he knew that ICOs would destroy everything else and then only Bitcoin would remain standing as the nation-states fight back. But 2016 research has shown that Bitcoin only remains incentives compatible with consensus as transaction fee revenue becomes significant relative to protocol block reward, if mining becomes controlled by a coordinated oligarchy (which appears to be the direction Bitcoin is headed with the Chinese controlling Bitcoin mining and only two 14nm ASIC fabs in the world in control of Bitcoin mining with surely the global elite controlling those fabs from behind the curtain). Also the block size issue has no possible solution (I analyzed this in great detail in an upcoming blog of mine which also described my decentralized ledger solution and compares it to all known designs such as PoW, PoS, DPoS, Byteball, SPECTRE, IOHK's Ourboros, IOTA, etc).

I'm idealistic but also pragmatic.

I want to move crypto to the mainstream immediately and legally. And health willing, I am going to organize that.

As for raising money from non-accredited investors without complying with individual nation state regulations (e.g. to do Regulation A+ or CF crowd equity fundraising to USA persons, the corporation must be a USA corporation), this is massive legal jeopardy. I will not accept funding this way without some entity indemnifying me. Ethereum went to Switzerland and I presume had layers of lawyers indemnifying them personally. I need to look into this more. But even if I did go that route, I would not issue tokens in exchange for investment, because I would not want to encumber the tokens with future illegality. Instead I would issue shares and pay dividends in tokens from the revenue earned from apps developed for the ecosystem.

In short, I want to do this in a smarter way.

I don't agree. There are a lot of successful ICOs. Only scam ICOs hurt cryptocurrency.

Name one and their accomplishements?

Ethereum?

Ethereum's entire raison d'être is ICO speculation selling bags to greater fools. There's no adoption for any other use case.

Example exchanges: if it is illegal to exchange decentral exchanges must and will evolve.

The mainstream of society has no compelling reason to incriminate themselves unless it's to join some civilization destroying South Seas or Tulip Bubble. Are you determined to relegate crypto to the fringe of civilization or attempt to duplicate the Tulip Bubble disaster!

These days, ICO's is bringing crypto investments mainstream, with big publicity regarding currencies generating millions of dollars virtually over night.

Mainstreaming only greater fool speculation MLM bubble. There's no adoption at all for any real world use case. Zero. Zilch.

Thus ICOs are destroying crypto, by moving the focus away from real uses to pure greed.

[zirt]

Hi
Indeed ICO amounts were (are?) trully amazing
People making a good pdf, a website, then people invest millions...
Good ideas and good teams are rare. But they exist.
Most of the ICO i don t participate, I wait coin to be traded on exchange to buy.

The more value is to invest in many small market caps and HODL almost forever...

[tk808]

Recent news of the imminent closer of many Chinese exchanges is the direct result of them dealing in ICOs, I've been shocked for the longest time other countries have done so, allowing ICO's to fly under regulators radar, however its only just a matter of time.

It was obious but don't worry  goverment would ban crypto becouse some bad actrors will start using it.
This common in life excuses like terrorism pedofilia you don't realy need ICO to do that.
ICO is way to move arround IPO regulations - but for me this is ok people have freedom to fail at investment too.
ICOs are making harder life for BTC but same time people are greedy and want more ICO more x10 x3 ; ) in week this is casino sometimes.

While this is completely true in regards to ICO, the title of the thread is ICO's is killing crypto. Now, 3-4 years ago, i would of 100% agreed with you, because that was a totally different time then for those of us who where involved then. The ideas, perspective and outlooks for digital currencies.

These days, ICO's is bringing crypto investments mainstream, with big publicity regarding currencies generating millions of dollars virtually over night.

There is a lot of positives that have come from ICO, but, the negatives is what kelsey mentioned above.

[Spoetnik]

You all are ignoring what they are.
As in HOW THEY WORK and whether that is appropriate and.. fair.
Why did dev's drop mining coins and ramp up output (more coins) ?

You are all skipping over the ideology of crypto that was established many years before an ICO existed.

Lets recap.. when Ripple or Ethereum launched they were considered scammy..
Because they were an ICO.
That is history people.

Problem is the newer crowd joining in kept lowering the bar.. simply out of greed.
Don't kid yourselves this is not about "crypto currencies"
It is purely about profits.

Period.

So what do ICO's have to do with a crypto currency ?
Not a god damn fucking thing.
They are a scam vehicle.. a new age version of an old pyramid scheme scam design.
Can any of you with a straight face say the ICO distribution method is an improvement over a mined coin like Bitcoin ?
If Satoshi wanted to ICO Bitcoin he would have chucklefuck's.

All we have here is losers.. shitbirds and profiteers and investards.
The morality nose dived hard when mass SCRYPT cloning took hold and worthless garbage like Doge coin exploded in popularity.

The reality is crypto outgrew morality.. it has no need for it anymore and left it for dead.
And unlike all of you i will not contribute to this bullshit.
I quit.
I never have nor will i ever own or support an ICO coin in any way.
Apparently for a little Bitcoin "dust" many of you will.

Crypto is in fact being killed off.
It is now stained forever..

[prehisto]

Recent news of the imminent closer of many Chinese exchanges is the direct result of them dealing in ICOs, I've been shocked for the longest time other countries have done so, allowing ICO's to fly under regulators radar, however its only just a matter of time.

No. Thats such an overstatement!

China do not want their money to get away from country, thats it!
They are concerned for their economy.

Also I think that only country which can get away with this is China because of their strict other regulations. in other countries one would just go around this prohibition.

[Hyperme.sh]

Recent news of the imminent closer of many Chinese exchanges is the direct result of them dealing in ICOs, I've been shocked for the longest time other countries have done so, allowing ICO's to fly under regulators radar, however its only just a matter of time.

No. Thats such an overstatement!

China do not want their money to get away from country, thats it!
They are concerned for their economy.

Also I think that only country which can get away with this is China because of their strict other regulations. in other countries one would just go around this prohibition.

I'm trying to understand why you ignore the fact that several nations have warned of a future crackdown coming for ICOs, including the USA, UK, Canada, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

It seems you're determined to promote illegal investment securities and MLM scams, because of your insatible desire for greed at the expense of luring ever more greater fools into the irresistible bubble (because no one wants to be left behind while everyone else is making oodles of money promoting empty bags to the next set of greater fools).

Because humanity can't resist greed and MLM scams. And this is why a world government will be imposed on you fools, because humans can't self-organize and control themselves as individuals. IOW, a tragedy-of-the-commons.

Nevertheless for those who are smart, we'll try to save crypto, offer a better and more sane direction, and try to bring real use cases to the masses while you fools go fall off a cliff into jail and destruction.

[brifs]

You all are ignoring what they are.
As in HOW THEY WORK...

I'm new so if there's a dynamic here that I'm unaware of am not adhering to, that's probably why. feel free to dm me if i violate some norms.

That said, @Spoetnik i understand your sentiment, but I'm not sure I agree with your assessments.

While the atmosphere around ICOs is erratic, that is the natural state of something as fundamentally innovation as the blockchain is technologically and by extension economically. The blockchain and smart contracts are potentially so deflationary that, within the broader contexts of machine learning and globalization, their impact over even the next 10 years is unforeseeable.

The ICO ecosystem is erratic because it's going to create a lot of winners and losers, in terms of incumbents vs. newcomers.

Are we in a cryptoassst bubble?
Yes.

Will it boom and bust many more time before global adoption stabilizes the cryptoassst ecosystem
You can bet on it.

Are smart contracts, and by extension ICO-created cryptoasssts going to achieve global ubiquity?
There's no doubt. It's infinitely better than the status quo for just about every type of transaction.

Are ICOs chock full of scammers?
Yes, but they are nothing more than background noise to folks who see the fundamental value in the blockchain and are building actual product on top of it to possibly make a dent in the world.

Shouldn't this all be illegal for the sake of the blockchain's reputation
It already is. There doesn't need to be any new laws for fraud and embezzlement. All crooks are doing is run-of-the-mill white-collar crime. The ICO is just a new canvas upon which the artist paints their con — it's still the same same painting (if you will).

Will the scammers bring us all down?
For a time, but this too will pass just like it did after the first dot com bubble. Many more people will go to prison this time though. Just like now, in the first dot com there were irrational valuations that baselessly spiraled higher and higher before burning out and going to zero. The difference is that the blatant SEC violations and fraud were no where near the levels they are currently in cryptoassets, at that time in the late-90's/early-2000's.

Anyway, sorry for the rant but I truly believe in cryptoassets. Do I want to do well in the ecosystem? — Yeah sure, but that's not the only reason and that doesn't negate all the other reason's why I or anyone else would be interested in ICOs and crypto more broadly.

My advice to anyone who believes like I do that crypto is going to change everything and is building that change...
Keep your head down on your projects and ignore the BS hype. Have a plan for reducing your burn rates because when the bottom falls out of the cryptoasset market, and it certainly will, your team is going to need to have a long enough runway to see your way to sustainability or a market turn around. Sadly, most projects will not make it through the coming storm. Plan for it.

[Spoetnik]

No ICO dev "needs" money.
If they can't afford to pay for the coin to get launched etc they could simply post the idea for their coin here and someone who has the resources could do it.

Case in point..
The scam coin BLOCKNET

When it launched and the dev asked for a million dollars in Bitcoin i asked him why he needed so much.
He said, "to ensure it's a success"
A year or so later he let the hosting expire on the web site from lack of payments.

EDIT: and he had fuck all coded after getting his million dollar paycheck after a year too !

HAHAHHAHAHHA

Oh and here is the kicker..
He admitted to coding 75% of the coin before he posted his ANN topic which consisted of a little jpeg with a few bullet points.
(a clever way to re-write the topic with out it being saved)

And..
All the little chucklefucks and shitbirds were more than happy to buy the million dollar jpeg on Poloniex and Bittrex.

Because your scummy fucking pieces of shit supporting raw garbage
..for Bitcoin profits
...with stupid bullshit excuses defending ICO's  

[AiloveYouks21]

too many shit coins that just want to get the funds only, too much. The concept is vague and so forth and of course it harms the crypto currency.

[WoodySpoon]

So your solution is to bring regulators into the scene to keep an eye on the market?

ICO's are minuscule in the world of international finance, stop spreading FUD. More investors = more value, not every business can utilize Bitcoins infrastructure, there's more uses to blockchain technology than a single coin.
 

[Cnut237]

I don't think ICOs are killing crypto, ICOs can be a great way of generating publicity and new money and new entrants to cryptoworld. It is just that there are some bad ones and scam ones out there. So it is really a good thing that these will in time have regulations like other businesses. I am not worried at all and think it will be a positivie once the temporary panic calms down a bit.

[Hyperme.sh]

Will the scammers bring us all down?
For a time, but this too will pass just like it did after the first dot com bubble.

I can't think of any dot.com IPO bag that became anything significant?

The significant companies were created from the small and grew into the large, e.g. Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, Google.

I expect the same for ICOs. None of them will end up being anything but speculation pump and dumps. Including Ethereum, NEO, Qtum, EOS, etc..

It's so damn easy to raise funds, that none of these groups has any incentive to actually accomplish anything in terms of real world adoption. It's much more lucrative to go start a new ICO and raise more money. Daniel Larimer is for example on his 4th or 5th fund raising junket with EOS, after Steem, Bitshares, Protoshares, etc.. Come-from-beyond who admitted he was the creator of Next is repeating the ICO scam with IOTA (which can't even reach consensus if they remove the centralized servers) and I think I heard they have another fundraising scam coming.

The dot.com bubble didn't incriminate the public who speculated on the shares on the stock exchanges. Whereas, everyone who is trading ICOs now is incriminating themselves. It's quite an understatement to say that many more people are going to prison.

Many of you are going to be guilty of causing a public mania into ICOs, if the authorities don't crackdown soon enough.

You can see I'm making sure I will not be part of it. I only hold BTC, LTC, and BCH (and a tiny bit of STEEM so I can continue to blog there, but I have clearly articulated that I think Steem is a scam and I'm not promoting nor wishing to be part of any longer than I need to be until my project is launched to replace Steem for blogging and other use cases).

The dot.com analogy is interesting to me because I was offered $1 million in stock options by Homepage.com to buyout my coolpage.com in 2000 (figure roughly $3 million in 2017 dollars). I declined because I was prescient about the coming dot.com bust, so I negotiated a $205,000 non-exclusive license in cash instead. And I continued to milk the income from Coolpage for 7 more years even though I stopped working on it.

I also predicted in an emphatic Steemit blog this recent ICO crash 2 days before it occurred.

Am I going to be prescient again or on the wrong side of history?

I urge more of you to come out and emphatically denounce ICOs, so that newbies who are reading have some alternative perspectives to draw from.

I don't think ICOs are killing crypto, ICOs can be a great way of generating publicity and new money and new entrants to cryptoworld. It is just that there are some bad ones and scam ones out there. So it is really a good thing that these will in time have regulations like other businesses. I am not worried at all and think it will be a positivie once the temporary panic calms down a bit.

Publicity for creating a dot.com bubble in ICOs that leaves the general public holding useless bags and being very angry about it. The kind of publicity we need is an adoption killer app that the public loves and admires, e.g. Facebook, Google, MySpace, etc.. But the problem is that the public has no reason whatsoever to adopt decentralized ledger clones of those popular Internet sites, unless there is some killer features they need which can only be obtained on the decentralized ledger variants.

I already challenged one of your comradres upthread to name one single ICO project that has produced any real world adoption.

All I get is silence in response.

ICOs are going to destroy the reputation and potential of crypto, associating it with scams, speculation bubbles, coupled with the bad aspects of Bitcoin such ransomware, assassination bounties, etc..

What are we building that from the perspective of the mainstream is perceived to be good for society with real world adoption to counter act all the negatives? NOTHING!

So don't be surprised when later the nation-states are forced by public opinion to crackdown not just on ICOs but potentially decentralized ledgers in general.

Smart guys please wake up.

So your solution is to bring regulators into the scene to keep an eye on the market?

ICO's are minuscule in the world of international finance, stop spreading FUD. More investors = more value, not every business can utilize Bitcoins infrastructure, there's more uses to blockchain technology than a single coin.

You presume that ICOs offer anything but destruction.

Until you have another solution for avoiding mass manias such as the dot.com bubble, the South Seas bubble, the Tulip bubble, etc., then I guess we are stuck with government regulation. Government regulation of speculation manias is a fact of existing law. Do you propose we popularize crypto by violating the law and promoting a mass mania that accomplishes nothing and leaves a wake of destruction?

The real use cases won't be built as long as everyone is more interested in selling empty bags to greater fools. No one has an incentive to actually do the hard work, when so much easy money is dangling in front of them for the taking. Selling empty bags to greater and greater fools is so much more attractive than the slog of repeated failure of trying to discover a killer app.

You may think for example that Ethereum has done useful R&D. But the reality is that in 3+ years they've never solved the consensus algorithm issue. Casper innovates nothing and just an obfuscation of all the drawbacks of Byzantine agreement and proof-of-stake. Whereas, I actually innovated the consensus algorithm to something that is not proof-of-work, not proof-of-stake, and I did it with less than $50,000 of funding over 2 years (just for personal expenses during that timeframe and it would not have taken that long had I not been morbidly ill). Ethereum had $18 million right?

Look what the Altcoin Discussion forum has become:

Looking for ICO ready to moon!

Which ICO would you suggest for October?

Vitalik Buterin networth $100 Million?

You all know that Russian central bank is backing him up as loyalist of Putin ( I am not against it, just mentioning facts)

Did you have a FOMO investment ?

[coin_1122]

So your solution is to bring regulators into the scene to keep an eye on the market?

ICO's are minuscule in the world of international finance, stop spreading FUD. More investors = more value, not every business can utilize Bitcoins infrastructure, there's more uses to blockchain technology than a single coin.
 

Most of the ICO owners will respond until they get money. After getting the money they will start neglecting the investors and they will start crapping with the people. Most of the ICO owners are doing the same thing with the investors.

[Spoetnik]

So your solution is to bring regulators into the scene to keep an eye on the market?

ICO's are minuscule in the world of international finance, stop spreading FUD. More investors = more value, not every business can utilize Bitcoins infrastructure, there's more uses to blockchain technology than a single coin.
 

Junior FUD is warranted.
Notice the consensus in the scene ?
Which is ? That *YES* indeed MOST ICO's are scammy bullshit.
Hence the context and rightful use of "FUD"
When the scene is flooded with *mostly scam coins then yeah.. you SHOULD have FUD.

Comprende Junior ?

And cut the "investor" crap kid  ..you are no "investor"

[NereuFajardo]

I think ICO is diffenrence with Crypto. they just use blockchain technology to fund money for their project. not related to this crypto world.

[bitcoinvestor]

BAD icos are hurting crypto, but this too shall pass

Fake ICOs kill cryptocurrencies slowly. That's will cause many government alert about ICOs. However it is a good news for investors when there are many government regulate ICOs there will be more trusted ICOs than now. Most ICOs now are worthless like shitcoin ICO, fuck coin, wha'ts for the coin. it is nothing for the development of the cryptoworld.

[cryptonianz]

Why would someone believe this? If you think about it all ICO's have gathered almost 2 billion. That's almost 2% of the total Market Cap?

I believe ICO is what is keeping crypto alive.

People that are now entering the crypto market don't want to catch a train that they already lost, they want a new project and they wish that it will go to the MOON!

[Hyperme.sh]

Why would someone believe this? If you think about it all ICO's have gathered almost 2 billion. That's almost 2% of the total Market Cap?

Global stock markets are $18.5 trillion.

Total private equity raised in 2016 was $345 billion. Total venture capital raised in 2016 was $127 billion, with $41 billion of that in the USA.

So roughly a couple percent of global venture funding activity.

But what may be more important is the rate of growth, which without even computing it, I can reasonably guess is growing faster than a quadrupling per year (Ethereum was probably the main ICO of 2014 at $18 million). So if this continues, the percentage will be quite significant by next year.

I believe ICO is what is keeping crypto alive.

People that are now entering the crypto market don't want to catch a train that they already lost, they want a new project and they wish that it will go to the MOON!

Agreed. But that is indicative of what I wrote about upthread, which is that no one has developed any viable real world use case for decentralized ledger of significance, i.e. no mass adoption use case has been demonstrated.

Thus the ecosystem is attracting predominately only those who want “to da moon” greater fool scams. This is destroying our ecosystem, because it is attracting a demographic of investors and projects no longer based on any real utility. We’re turning our ecosystem into an empty bag hype factory. Remember what I wrote upthread about developers having no incentive to execute anything, because  it’s more lucrative to issue another ICO than to work on the promises of the prior ICO.

I’m preparing to do something about this.

The Hypermesh name will be discarded.

[senin]

ICO is one of the tools for improving the crypto currency. Specialists are involved in its conduct and they try to introduce new technologies and ideas into new coins to make these coins occupy a certain niche among the crypto-currencies and facilitate our life in some area. Therefore ICO is needed. Another thing is that not all of them for various reasons reach the end and the coins created sometimes are not viable. This market and here is not only success, but also failure.

[Hyperme.sh]

ICO is one of the tools for improving the crypto currency.

This is the 3rd time in this thread I’m challenging you who make this claim, to name one ICO that has generated any use case adoption? The only use is selling empty bags to greater fools (even for Ethereum that’s the only use case that has been achieved).

All I get is silence and no response.

ICOs produce nothing. Zilch. Stop lying to yourself and others. You’re promoting empty bags of hype to greater fools than your foolish self. Admit it. You’re here for only because of you’re greed and you try assuage your conscience with some delusion such as quoted above. Admit it that FOMO is irresistible. Just like when you were young and there was the sound of a party in the neighbourhood and you were stuck at home in bed because your parents wanted you to grow up to be an industrious person. But now you’re free to sneak out your bedroom window and run to the party.

[gwestcot]

ICO is one of the tools for improving the crypto currency.

This is the 3rd time in this thread I’m challenging you who make this claim, to name one ICO that has generated any use case adoption? The only use is selling empty bags to greater fools (even for Ethereum that’s the only use case that has been achieved).

All I get is silence and no response.

ICOs produce nothing. Zilch. Stop lying to yourself and others. You’re promoting empty bags of hype to greater fools than your foolish self. Admit it. You’re here for only because of you’re greed and you try assuage your conscience with some delusion such as quoted above. Admit it that FOMO is irresistible. Just like when you were young and there was the sound of a party in the neighbourhood and you were stuck at home in bed because your parents wanted you to grow up to be an industrious person. But now you’re free to run to the party.

Monaco and Tenx are pretty good ICO's. There are some good ones out there but yes I agree that there are a lot of bad ICO's that people buy into without doing research. That being said, I believe that is the investors fault and governments don't need to step in to regulate things to a great degree.

[Gnosis7777]

All I see in this thread are a bunch of greedy newbs or otherwise rapacious jackass's rather poorly attempting to defend their ponzi-pyramid scams.

The governments are going to crack down on these 'ICO' launches, and rightly so, for causing prolific economic loss to the masses; commercial, contract, tort, common, positive or equitable laws exist for a reason: to make remedies available for those whom suffered loss based on relying on a transactional scheme or contract; it will be the governments who subrogate into the shoes of those whom suffered economic loss, acting therefore as creditor, the metaphorical piper to be paid. The warning has come ex ante to those propagating or profiteering from these pernicious motifs, yet these profiteers believe there will not be consequences?

Simply, not everyone is fit for self-governance; and those who cannot govern themselves accordingly for a greater egalitarian cause, instead robbing Peter to pay himself, will instead be governed by powers larger than himself.

Thus, we implore you, the people, to think before acting; proceed for the greater good alone; else inevitably, misery itself shall haunt you.

[Hyperme.sh]

All I see in this thread are a bunch of greedy newbs or otherwise rapacious jackass's rather poorly attempting to defend their ponzi-pyramid scams.

The governments are going to crack down on these 'ICO' launches, and rightly so, for causing prolific economic loss to the masses; commercial, contract, tort, common, positive or equitable laws exist for a reason: to make remedies available for those whom suffered loss based on relying on a transactional scheme or contract; it will be the governments who subrogate into the shoes of those whom suffered economic loss, acting therefore as creditor, the metaphorical piper to be paid. The warning has come ex ante to those propagating or profiteering from these pernicious motifs, yet these profiteers believe there will not be consequences?

Simply, not everyone is fit for self-governance; and those who cannot govern themselves accordingly for a greater egalitarian cause, instead robbing Peter to pay himself, will instead be governed by powers larger than himself.

Thus, we implore you, the people, to think before acting; proceed for the greater good alone; else inevitably, misery itself shall haunt you.

Wow. +1. Finally I can STFU, because others are willing to speak up.

[Spoetnik]

So your solution is to bring regulators into the scene to keep an eye on the market?

ICO's are minuscule in the world of international finance, stop spreading FUD. More investors = more value, not every business can utilize Bitcoins infrastructure, there's more uses to blockchain technology than a single coin.
 

kelsey is not bringing in the regulators.. YOU are by supporting things you should not.

ICO = SCAM .

[rudystyle]

Most of the ICOs are going to fall like flies once their funds run out. Dot com bubble rerun, only this time bigger and more severe

[vfrcbv91]

Cathay is not a complete bar to ico. As I know China temporarily closes ico for the development of appropriate regulation. But it's good, it means they now understand how serious crypto sector.

[Hyperme.sh]

WARNING: those who are trading and promoting ICO issued tokens to non-accredited investors in G20 nations (even via an exchange) may be incriminating themselves. Even the European Union has a criteria for accredited investors (and even Ethereum didn’t restrict its ICO accordingly):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accredited_investor#European_Union

These guys could possibly end up in a pickle (they’re in Hong Kong and Cayman Islands):

https://bnktothefuture.com/icos

Every major nation has securities regulation law which applies to ICOs (including even Japan and India), and eventually the authorities will crackdown and enforce the laws:

With the recent bans, and news of crypto tightening regulations, some coins (mostly those which are modeled as a security) are beginning to move more into an accredited investor/institutional investor-only ICO.

Unless they identify and verify accredited investor status and file the appropriate paperwork in every jurisdiction where those accredited investors reside, then they’re still illegally issued securities, e.g. EOS’ checkbox for “I’m an accredited investor” is not legal issuance. Anyone promoting or trading these (including the owners of the exchanges!) may be incriminating themselves.

Do you guys see it as ICOs/blockchain defeating its own purpose by being open only to individuals with the big bucks, a needed measure, or there is way for us to agree on a middle ground?

Tokens issued under an accredited investor exemption must only be traded to other verified accredited investors. If the issuers/promoters/investors reasonably expect these tokens to be listed on public exchanges then they are probably committing a crime. An attorney pointed this out.

Fundraising via tokens is a giant mess that should be entirely avoided by everyone (at least until the authorities provide some new legal framework which might be many years from now, especially since it will require globalized harmonization of law in order to allow trading across nation-state borders). ICO issued tokens are doomed and will likely become illegal to trade and thus worthless. Expect exchanges to start voluntarily delisting ICO issued tokens once they realize the deep shit they are in. You’re investing in empty bags that have never produced any real world use or than facilitating selling empty bags to greater fools.

[glerant]

I agree that one has to be extra careful when investing in ICOs - research is key!

However there is a lot of hypocrisy from the elites with vested interests.
We all witnessed the blatant market manipulation recently carried out by Jamie Dimon with the help of the mainstream media. The Swedes are even making threatening noises towards JP Morgan - although we all know nothing will come of it.

https://news.bitcoin.com/jamie-dimons-bitcoin-statements-reported-as-market-abuse-in-sweden/

Personally, I think it is good that China have put on the brakes. Many other regions are looking at ways of regulating the ICO area. Meanwhile we have platforms like Waves that are actively working with the authorities to suggest ways of regulating - be it self regulation or legal frameworks with help from organisations like Deloitte.

However, as I said above, with or without regulation - Do your research! 

[TedMosby]

China ban ICOs because at china have so many company use ICOs  to make money  ,it is not helpful or useful for investors ,it is not real .
I think china  ban ICOs is good news  in china ,but they ban exchanges is not good ,we need More and more exchange where we can trade crytocurrenty, crytocurrenty was born to trade is main .
I believe A good ICO have roadmap ,company ,developer team behind .. Still have a success story .
No one or anything can kill crytocurrenty, i believe that .

Yeah, agree with you.
not only in china, but in other country too. every online ponzi (or multi level marketing) business trying to make their own fake coin and label it as an initial coin offering to attract more investor. like every HYIP site has their own coin. it is the trend now.

[gwestcot]

All I see in this thread are a bunch of greedy newbs or otherwise rapacious jackass's rather poorly attempting to defend their ponzi-pyramid scams.

The governments are going to crack down on these 'ICO' launches, and rightly so, for causing prolific economic loss to the masses; commercial, contract, tort, common, positive or equitable laws exist for a reason: to make remedies available for those whom suffered loss based on relying on a transactional scheme or contract; it will be the governments who subrogate into the shoes of those whom suffered economic loss, acting therefore as creditor, the metaphorical piper to be paid. The warning has come ex ante to those propagating or profiteering from these pernicious motifs, yet these profiteers believe there will not be consequences?

Simply, not everyone is fit for self-governance; and those who cannot govern themselves accordingly for a greater egalitarian cause, instead robbing Peter to pay himself, will instead be governed by powers larger than himself.

Thus, we implore you, the people, to think before acting; proceed for the greater good alone; else inevitably, misery itself shall haunt you.

Hey... If you don't do your due diligence then some of the blame goes to the ignorant investor. Besides, painting things with broad strokes can be dangerous since there are a lot of great ICO's out there. Regulation is the killer of innovation. If they are going to drop regulation then it needs to be well thought out and not completely stifle the industry. 

[coingrow]

To be honest, these ICO are defiantely having an adverse effect on the entire crypto. With so much of influx of new money, some ICO's are making absurd collections. For gods sake, ICO's like filecoin and tezos teams do not even have to work and can chill in Bahamas or some place without working any single day anymore. I am happy for all the regulations that are coming in, most scams will cease to exist in future.

[gwestcot]

To be honest, these ICO are defiantely having an adverse effect on the entire crypto. With so much of influx of new money, some ICO's are making absurd collections. For gods sake, ICO's like filecoin and tezos teams do not even have to work and can chill in Bahamas or some place without working any single day anymore. I am happy for all the regulations that are coming in, most scams will cease to exist in future.

I would rather have less regulation than too much regulation. Like I said... I put it on the investor to do their research and decide if it is a good investment decision. If you don't do it and you just follow the buzz of some new shiny ICO then you can only look at yourself for blame. Regulators always do knee jerk reactions that will inevitably make it tough for any ICO's moving forward. Some have real products with real promise, some do not, and other are complete scams but leave it up to the investors to make the choices. I never like having big brother tell me what is best for me to do with my time and money. But as far as China goes I am happy they are getting out of the game. Japan will be the largest player in mining in 2018 so they will cease to be important.

[kabz]

Ico's are a great opportunity for start up to reach their goals faster, i'm investing in ico's at my own risk, i always take a lot of times to see if a project is worth my investment, been disapointed sometimes but overall i'm really happy with my investments.

[coinfinder000]

Recent news of the imminent closer of many Chinese exchanges is the direct result of them dealing in ICOs, I've been shocked for the longest time other countries have done so, allowing ICO's to fly under regulators radar, however its only just a matter of time.

It has some bad influence to crypto, but I don't think icos will be killed by governments . No one could stop the development of block chain , China limited some shit icos, they were scammer.

[msemenov]

In my opinion, ICOs are a way to expand crypto further — people who hold a big amount of BTC/ETH, etc. cannot cash them out — this would ruin the market. But they obviously need their money to work for them. So the best possible way is to invest in ICOs.
Of course, there will be a lot of scam projects. But the further it goes, the harder it will be to hold a successful token sale. You will need to show a working prototype, first clients, etc. Same as with VC — back then it was much easier to raise a seed round than it is now.
And if you spent a viscirous amount of resources on proofing your concept, then it's likely that you continue developing it.

[TheDAL]

When the ICOs are regulated, the picture will clear up more. Now, it's a highly risky option to deal with ICOs, or you should make a big exploration to find the reliable one. But in any case, crypto is not close to death at all.

[sfireman]

ICO is another field with crypto. eth = kickstarter platform for people want quick money by using blockchain tech

[DAVETUN]

ICO is not killing the crypto world,change and development is normal a thing evolve inbthe crypto world.scammers/fraudersters are the main challenges we have here,over time they will be checkmate.

[concept2]

I agree with you. It is not very good and wise to invest our money in ICO because as you can see, there are likely a thousand of ICOs around and many projects have the same idea to each other. Therefore, scammers can easily make a same project and collect people's money.

[Vatimins]

Recent news of the imminent closer of many Chinese exchanges is the direct result of them dealing in ICOs, I've been shocked for the longest time other countries have done so, allowing ICO's to fly under regulators radar, however its only just a matter of time.

Really man, you should try to look more deeper into the happenings today in the crypto world. ICOs aren't killing the crypto world. Instead, it is maming it better. It attracts more people everyday. Which is good for us who love crypto currencies. And the governments still can't do anything to pin down crypto currencies enough to make it illegal. So don't worry too much. If it happens then it happens. At least we had a great ride.

[richardsNY]

ICO is not killing the crypto world,change and development is normal a thing evolve inbthe crypto world.scammers/fraudersters are the main challenges we have here,over time they will be checkmate.

That's more or less correct. I think an even more important role that contributes to more scams popping up, is the fact that people blindly invest their money into anything they find. This is exactly the type of behavior that is giving scammers the incentive to expand and spread like a virus where they are harming the community. If people for once just took the time to think and do proper research before blindly diving into whatever ICO, this whole ICO craze wouldn't be infested with scammers.

[warr1979]

Recent news of the imminent closer of many Chinese exchanges is the direct result of them dealing in ICOs, I've been shocked for the longest time other countries have done so, allowing ICO's to fly under regulators radar, however its only just a matter of time.

It has some bad influence to crypto, but I don't think icos will be killed by governments . No one could stop the development of block chain , China limited some shit icos, they were scammer.

But actually the ICO market can makes the government pay attention to the cryptocurrency world, not is Bitcoin.
Because most of the case about speculative, the ICO market is subject makes China interested and banned it in their country first.

[PowerfulGuerilla]

ICOs are mainly used to raise funds to give a start for a new project, and a share of them are scamms, but ICO and crypto complement each other really well, despite any drawbacks, including obstructing the mainstream awareness about ICO and cryptos.

[BTCdoaA]

really 2017 was bad year for ICO even good powered ICO came with new idea that might help blockchain technology turned to be only profit collectors and main depends on WAVE\ETH assets. ETT was my last ICO which convince me to own special Tel number going to be used to secure communication privacy . 

[Drizzlepistol]

really 2017 was bad year for ICO even good powered ICO came with new idea that might help blockchain technology turned to be only profit collectors and main depends on WAVE\ETH assets. ETT was my last ICO which convince me to own special Tel number going to be used to secure communication privacy . 

all ICO do not improve any for blockchain tech. just collect money to develop their product

[stripykitteh]

really 2017 was bad year for ICO even good powered ICO came with new idea that might help blockchain technology turned to be only profit collectors and main depends on WAVE\ETH assets. ETT was my last ICO which convince me to own special Tel number going to be used to secure communication privacy . 

all ICO do not improve any for blockchain tech. just collect money to develop their product

I think some companies that announce they got a huge investment usually saves it for later use. It would be cool to see millions of dollars pumping Bitcoin.

[Youghoor]

But if the ICOs doesnt exist then there would not be almost any altcoins on the market, maybe 8/10 altcoins had initial coin offerings, so you are wrong with that.
but yes, the market is saturated by new icos, because the developers thinks that this is a fast way to become rich, and this is why there are a lot of new icos everyday, and i am not impressed by them anymore, since they all are the same, they promise too much, but they dont even do a 10% of what they promise.

[Tymbl]

I'd say scam ICO's are killing cryptos. Not legitimate ones. Unfortunately, too many so called entrepreneurs are catching the windfall on this

[naglas]

I would say nothing is killing crypto) It's a natural process, every new industry went through this... At first, it should be an uncontrollable start, then people who want to find some holes in the new rules appear, we need some time to develop law, and then we have more or less stable managed market.. nothing special

[CryptoCommander]

In my opinion ICOs are a necessary aspect of cryptocurrency evolution into mainstream society in coming years. Sure there have been a shit ton of bad ICOs/cash grabs but theres no denying that some of the innovation that these allow for has directly contributed to not only social acceptance as we are beginning to see it with the general public but also technical advances. They do need to be strictly regulated though imho.

[Tyrantt]

In my opinion ICOs are a necessary aspect of cryptocurrency evolution into mainstream society in coming years. Sure there have been a shit ton of bad ICOs/cash grabs but theres no denying that some of the innovation that these allow for has directly contributed to not only social acceptance as we are beginning to see it with the general public but also technical advances. They do need to be strictly regulated though imho.

Absolutely, it's not regulated at all and that can be a bad thing, everyone can start their own thing and basically pump n dump and yes, there are tooo many shit and scam coins that it's getting out of hand. No wonder they banned ICOs in China, there should be some filter to let the ones that are worth something get out to the world...

[Gnosis7777]

It begins:

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2017-176

Washington D.C., Sept. 25, 2017—
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced two new initiatives that will build on its Enforcement Division’s ongoing efforts to address cyber-based threats and protect retail investors. The creation of a Cyber Unit that will focus on targeting cyber-related misconduct

The Cyber Unit will focus the Enforcement Division’s substantial cyber-related expertise on targeting cyber-related misconduct, such as:

• Market manipulation schemes involving false information spread through electronic and social media
• Hacking to obtain material nonpublic information
• Violations involving distributed ledger technology and initial coin offerings

[Simu111]

Dear,
I like ICO because it have a great opportunity for us.
Marketing is very important to development any product or items. So I think it,s most preferably for any company's,
or country.

[smith136]

I think it is very isolated case in china since most of past ICOs there turn out to be scam that's why china is trying to put some regulations on it but there are a lot of upcoming ICO from legitimate people because they know that ICO is a good project, good investment and does a lot of income.

[SM23031997]

don't think the ICO scam are killing crypto but the people who fall for these scams will get a lesson. They will learn the basics of investment how, when and where to invest. Although, It is very bad as some people lose their money, If we look it from a different perspective it will help the bitcoin to grow more as the most users move towards bitcoin after this.

[loonb]

Peoples adopting to crypto world with ICOs. I don't agree with you ICOs are not killing crypto and they are forcing crypto.

[unusualfacts30]

Free market takes care of itself, there aren't as many scam ico than there were few years ago. Investors get smart overtime and learn to do their research before investing. Do you really want government telling you where to spend your money? because that's what regulation would do. It would make it more centralized. Is it a good thing or bad thing? there are prons and cons but I prefer wild west than centralization which would make everything not so anonymous and make no mistake, just because it's regulated doesn't mean there won't be scam.

[e11io]

ICOs are just one more way of raising funds.

[Hyperme.sh]

ICOs are just one more way of raising funds.

Please study the facts.

Crackdowns are coming eventually. China just the first salvo of what is coming from regulators in major nations.

Interventions to free market doesn't work ideally. The market can decide whether a project is valuable or no.

That is why we live in societies without any police and we allow the most corrupt to sell empty bags to greater fools to crash the economy is a massive Ponzi scheme that envelopes all the people in a mass mania such as the South Seas Bubble or the Tulip Bubble.

That is known as a Tragedy-of-the-Commons, because it’s a power vacuum that is captured by the most corrupt. It’s an inefficiency in the free market from a localized temporal perspective.

Corruption was Crazy during 19th Century




Regardless of whether that form of laissez-faire capitalism is better or not, the securities regulators and laws are a reality we have to contend with.

[Despacito]

Free market takes care of itself, there aren't as many scam ico than there were few years ago. Investors get smart overtime and learn to do their research before investing. Do you really want government telling you where to spend your money? because that's what regulation would do. It would make it more centralized. Is it a good thing or bad thing? there are prons and cons but I prefer wild west than centralization which would make everything not so anonymous and make no mistake, just because it's regulated doesn't mean there won't be scam.

That's the real idea people should beware of. Interventions to free market doesn't work ideally. The market can decide whether a project is valuable or no.

[b4h4mu7]

Without ICOs, there would be no Ethereum. Without Ethereum, the crypto market wouldn't have grown so fast. It's attracting a lot of capital right now.

Ethereum is facilitating a wave of shitcoins and most will never see the light of day. The coin itself is a shitcoin that can't even perform a basic function of a cryptocurrency i.e. multisig. The only thing propping it up is the perpetual token sale whereby investors have to buy ETH to buy said token. It was setup to be a crypto ponzi scheme to attract regulators to this market and that's essentially what it is - a trojan horse.

https://news.bitcoin.com/ethereums-parity-client-users-lose-millions-multi-sig-hack/

It's backed by big bankers from Wall Street who have developed an automated shitcoin factory with ETH as the center spoke of the wheel. A nice PSD will get you 30 million in funding sometimes more. Vitalik Buterin is nothing more than a front man for the big bankers. They figured he was some kind of authority in Bitcoin since he co-founded bitcoinmagazine.com so they hyped him up as the next Albert Einstein and all the idiots on Main Street ate it up.

ICOs have been around way before Etheruem was even an idea. The reason why it didn't attract regulators is because it required a minimum technical understanding of the Bitcoin protocol to launch a cryptocurrency to hold a premine for the ICO. Now every dip shit in silicon valley and on Wall Street is trying to launch their own token through it. Some even promoting integration with VISA and Mastercard.. Bitcoin and cryptocurrency was never meant to co-exist with VISA or any other payment processor for that matter - it was meant to replace it.

Satoshi Nakamoto: "Bitcoin can scale larger than the Visa Network"
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1391350.0

Silicon valley and wall street are co-opting Satoshi's movement to co-exist with the current system instead of replacing it. If it keeps going down this road this movement will die and be remembered as a tulip bulb bubble. By investing in these ICOs and supporting Ethereum YOU are responsible for contributing to the downfall of this legendary movement that has the potential to completely disrupt the central banking system and the debt slavery cycle that has imprisoned mankind for over 100 years.

Shitcoin projects like Civic who are promoting identity based cryptocurrency as a de facto standard are also contributing to the downfall of this movement. I wouldn't be surprised if that is a government project meant to derail this movement and discredit Bitcoin and it's counterparts. Why do we need identity based cryptocurrency to replace Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency? When you strip away all the fancy GUI wallets and the mobile applications all cryptocurrency is just data on your computer that you can transfer through a transmission protocol. If an identity is mandated for a file on your computer, then where does this end? Must an meme or gif also have a digital identity signature? How about a word document you send to a journalist through a peer to peer transmission? Do you see where this is going?

https://cryptoinsider.com/civic-blockchain-solution-combat-cybercrime/

The downfall of crypto was premeditated by the central banks:

1) China ban
2) Dimon discredits Bitcoin ("This will end badly"- Dimon)
3) G-8 slaps North Korea with sactions
4) China cuts trade ties with North Korea

What comes next (end goal)

5) All governments of the world accuse North Korea of using Bitcoin to fund their weapons program and attempt to impose draconian regulation (this is coming and will mark the biggest test for Cryptocurrency)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-11/north-korea-hackers-step-up-bitcoin-attacks-amid-rising-tensions
http://www.businessinsider.com/north-korea-allegedly-stole-bitcoin-from-south-korea-2017-4
https://www.coindesk.com/report-north-korea-targets-south-koreas-bitcoin-exchanges-cyber-attacks/
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/12/north-korea-hackers-trying-to-steal-bitcoin-evade-sanctions.html

This narrative is the same one pushed by the mainstream media with regards to Iraq and it's WMD program. Similarly, they cite no evidence of North Korea using Bitcoin yet they'll keep regurgitating this talking point until it the banhammer comes down. The Potcoin project is also to blame for this facilitating this narrative when they sent Dennis Rodman over there in Potcoin attire.

[Nerman]

Recent news of the imminent closer of many Chinese exchanges is the direct result of them dealing in ICOs, I've been shocked for the longest time other countries have done so, allowing ICO's to fly under regulators radar, however its only just a matter of time.

In some sense i agree with this i know that if we do not have initial coin offering we would'nt have neo,ripple, eth etc. But there are group of people who are using initial coin offering as a scheme.

[Getmon]

Recent news of the imminent closer of many Chinese exchanges is the direct result of them dealing in ICOs, I've been shocked for the longest time other countries have done so, allowing ICO's to fly under regulators radar, however its only just a matter of time.

ICOs are indeed full of scams and they are freely roaming the ICO streets without any law that strictly prevents them from multiplying. China is reacting to this properly as regards the ICO ban. But there will still be another law that would only put regulation in place of the ban because ICO is still widely used by good projects.

[Capt00]

Without ICOs, there would be no Ethereum. Without Ethereum, the crypto market wouldn't have grown so fast. It's attracting a lot of capital right now.

You're right, ICO are ethereum provider. Anyway, we can benefit them also and still there's a big rewards in joining their campaign.
And some ICOs are successfully launch, but some of them are vanished in the middle of their campaign(scam).

[kirito1614]

Awful icos are harming crypto, however this too should relax and still crypto will survive. ICOs are harming crypto, however this too might take a break and still crypto will survive. ICOs are taking valuable market top from what could be put into Bitcoin. They bring a radical new measurement to crypto that we have never observed.

[stockblock]

ICO's and IPO have same thing in common. Its risky. Most of the success depend on team, marketing and a bit of luck.

[coinpennant]

Why do you think so? With ICO you can get good coins for good price. For sure you need to know where to invest and how. This part is always tricky!

[GFE]

It was expected that governments would take attempts to regulate ICO and criptocurrecies at all (exchanges and etc). Capitalization growth of criptocurrences has big influence on governments strategy - the bigger capitalization growth of crypto the more efforts will be applied to regulate it.

[Hyperme.sh]

5) All governments of the world accuse North Korea of using Bitcoin to fund their weapons program and attempt to impose draconian regulation (this is coming and will mark the biggest test for Cryptocurrency)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-11/north-korea-hackers-step-up-bitcoin-attacks-amid-rising-tensions
http://www.businessinsider.com/north-korea-allegedly-stole-bitcoin-from-south-korea-2017-4
https://www.coindesk.com/report-north-korea-targets-south-koreas-bitcoin-exchanges-cyber-attacks/
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/12/north-korea-hackers-trying-to-steal-bitcoin-evade-sanctions.html

This narrative is the same one pushed by the mainstream media with regards to Iraq and it's WMD program. Similarly, they cite no evidence of North Korea using Bitcoin yet they'll keep regurgitating this talking point until it the banhammer comes down. The Potcoin project is also to blame for this facilitating this narrative when they sent Dennis Rodman over there in Potcoin attire.

Not that extreme. They’re just going to leverage the ICO regulation to increase the digital tracking of everything we do:

In December meanwhile, more stringent identification of virtual currency holders who convert funds to fiat will come into being, with the onus on businesses to ensure they can identify customers behind the conversions.

Banks will also monitor “unusual” cashflow events.

“We will start the transaction by confirming the identity of the bank and monitoring the flow of funds,” the official continued.

“It will facilitate tracking of funds … and provide a basis for preventing money laundering such as suspicious transaction reports."

Japan on it's move to regulate cryptocoins, has started licensing exchanges operating inside it's jurisdiction.
https://www.bitsonline.com/japanese-exchanges-licenses/

Quoinex becomes the first to get such license followed by bitflyer.

So, are we going towards more kyc, identity verification, source of income, income tax, profit tax, remittance tax?

[dolan564]

Why do you think so? With ICO you can get good coins for good price. For sure you need to know where to invest and how. This part is always tricky!

I think this depends on what your goals are and how to go about them. Quick profit? don't invest long, invest and short it immediately.

for long term investments, it takes more research of the company, vertical that it's in, the problem it's solving and it's product, etc.

[beerlover]

Without ICOs, there would be no Ethereum. Without Ethereum, the crypto market wouldn't have grown so fast. It's attracting a lot of capital right now.

You're right, ICO are ethereum provider. Anyway, we can benefit them also and still there's a big rewards in joining their campaign.
And some ICOs are successfully launch, but some of them are vanished in the middle of their campaign(scam).

We cannot really do much about this, can we? It is normal for anything to have advantage as well as disadvantage. So I guess we will just have to stick with what we have presently since the innovation behind ethereum has really helped to spring up some quality coins as well and also helped generate a lot for the crypto community as a whole.

[Domineum]

On one hand, ICOs are taking precious market cap from what could be invested into Bitcoin.

On the other, they bring a whole new dimension to crypto that we have never seen before.

It is just such a shame they are almost always pump-and-dump scams.

It is sad a lot of them are like that. You've got your weak hands in the beginning and that's it if its a good project. You're right, they bring so much opportunity to not only the financial world, but the way people live life daily. Just gotta hunt for the good ones!

[dutchkay]

Banning ICO is actually a good thing, people have started messing it up and turning it into scam. Chinese did a good thing to regulate it. ICO really messed up crypto space and I believe with regulation market will be back to what it use to be.

[bosses]

I agree, but not completely because ico they lure many new people to this market and this is a positive side.

[h1h2h3_c]

Nevertheless, in the crypto trading markets there are many whales that playing on the bad news, to instill our fear with the intention to collect good coin at the lowest price possible.
After the bad news is over there will be a turn to hype on the good news for the "distribution" to small player.

This is similar like in the stock trading markets, bigger fish will eat smaller fish.

Crypto is a international currency and there is a lot of big whales which have pretty big experience then they are trying their logical tricks to apply to make the market down like they are trying to instill fear in the people about the crypto currency with some bad news and after that with some good news they can gain a big profit.

[Ging]

crypto have never been the same since ICO0 the ICO coin sales value steered throughout the year 2017 are more than ten times as much as in all of last year

[Flodemaga]

Well Icos are and will always be a part of the ecosystem, there are a lot coins wich havent been live due to lack of funds, sure some coins did raised more money they need, but its because people believe and trust into the coin and its potencial. Before a lot ico were live at yobit and the most of them were just shitcoins, nowadays we do see some good coins coming and good projects borning.

[aoihs00]

Recent news of the imminent closer of many Chinese exchanges is the direct result of them dealing in ICOs, I've been shocked for the longest time other countries have done so, allowing ICO's to fly under regulators radar, however its only just a matter of time.

There is no shocking news in that as long as the ICO gets banned from the whole world. Lols. That would be real shock though.
Well, getting the ICO under regulators radar doesn't mean that it's of no use. But it is being done for us, so that we the people won't get spammed as the investors of ICO. Chinese plan is the same as far as roumors are seen on the internet. If the ICO becomes regulated everywhere then it will create a system of justice where we can invest the money with full confidence as we will be knowing that every bit of ICO is true and legit from now onwards. No spams, and only the profit that we can grab after successful implantation of the particular ICO.

[Pattart]

Without ICOs, there would be no Ethereum. Without Ethereum, the crypto market wouldn't have grown so fast. It's attracting a lot of capital right now.

You're right, ICO are ethereum provider. Anyway, we can benefit them also and still there's a big rewards in joining their campaign.
And some ICOs are successfully launch, but some of them are vanished in the middle of their campaign(scam).

Etherum is a form of the success of a cryptocurrency. many people are then interested in trying to invest in cryptocurrency because they are first acquainted with etherum. seeing etherum is a form of an ICO that successfully gets crowdfunding from many people. so i think ico does not kill crypto

[Thyaga]

Etherum is a form of the success of a cryptocurrency. many people are then interested in trying to invest in cryptocurrency because they are first acquainted with etherum. seeing etherum is a form of an ICO that successfully gets crowdfunding from many people. so i think ico does not kill crypto

lol just now ICO does not have such an impact anymore because so many shitcoin are holding ICOs, do not talk about Ethereum it is a successful coin now we are talking about coins that held ICO in this year, which is successful only slightly.

[Cryptonodes]

I don't think so.

ICOs are a big crypto achievement.

ICOs are very popular and are spreading crypto among the public.

[coinsensus]

Recent news of the imminent closer of many Chinese exchanges is the direct result of them dealing in ICOs, I've been shocked for the longest time other countries have done so, allowing ICO's to fly under regulators radar, however its only just a matter of time.

Totally agree! I was also shocked! And people like Buterin should avoid lending their faces to some ICOs!

[Images21]

I still think that ICO can be recovered from this mire of controversies. China's decision to put some regulation in the ICOs offered in the market is just right. And now news that South Korea will do the same is another step to clean ICO of scam projects. When all these are done, ICOs will become not as controversial as it is right now.

[Gnosis7777]

SEC charges first ICO company with fraud:

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2017-185-0

Washington D.C., Sept. 29, 2017—
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a businessman and two companies with defrauding investors in a pair of so-called initial coin offerings (ICOs) purportedly backed by investments in real estate and diamonds.

The SEC alleges that Maksim Zaslavskiy and his companies have been selling unregistered securities, and the digital tokens or coins being peddled don't really exist. According to the SEC's complaint, investors in REcoin Group Foundation and DRC World (also known as Diamond Reserve Club) have been told they can expect sizeable returns from the companies' operations when neither has any real operations.

[Keihatsu]

ICOs are not killing crypto, scammers are. Fcuk'in vermin.

[Bitforking]

Ethereum needs big players to launch ICOs, not the newbies with no credentials whatsoever but few programmers. Business can not survive without customers, programmers can create a tool but not revenue. White Papers are just templates.

Once the blockchain technology is mature enough to attract real business. that's when the crypto coins take off.

[shawn995]

Crypto is a international currency and there is a lot of big whales which have pretty big experience then they are trying their logical tricks to apply to make the market down like they are trying to instill fear in the people about the crypto currency with some bad news and after that with some good news they can gain a big profit.

[VeeTeaSee]

ICO's dont kill crypto
nothing killing the cryptos...
only people killing the reputation of ICO's...
it will be changed.

[Dart18]

They can close it if they want but it will still continue.
ICO's are not really killing crypto but more like an efficient way to focus on one service using one coin.
It cannot be handled all by bitcoin, ETH or Waves. This tokens are a good way to extract some funds that could create a better service which could not be provided by the currencies mentioned.
Projects leaning on them are slow and no merchant want to give in.
It is just that, there are a lot who are making it an easy way to earn money by scams. We should protect the ICO's from that not protect ourselves from all the ICO.

[omerchip]

i want to join ICO's all the time but it dont mean i am a supporter of it.its so risky and harmful for investors but how they can ban this shit?this is imposibble because people getting rich faster and there will be always a some ICO

[summonerrk]

Im dissagree, because ICO is a one way to collect needed funds for project. Developers and promoters must receive money.

[BarkingHawk]

ICOs are not killing crypto, scammers are. Fcuk'in vermin.

I couldn't agree more.  Once the money started flowing in the greed went into overdrive and many people started doing all sorts of things to take advantage of it.

[cynical]

ICOs are not killing crypto, scammers are. Fcuk'in vermin.

I couldn't agree more.  Once the money started flowing in the greed went into overdrive and many people started doing all sorts of things to take advantage of it.

if it can be made by man, it can be broken by man! generally speaking it is human nature to be greedy, we all want more and more as quickly as we can and at others expense. in the long run with more regulation there could be room for proper legitimate crypto projects

[Itjoker]

Scam projects and fraudsters are negative effecting on cryptos.

[Neo.op]

scam icos are breaking the credibility of the crypto market.
now this job has become a home of fraudsters

[rufus59]

Well that your own opinion, ICO has done more good than harm, but the inky problem of ICO is hat there much scams this days and no regulation. It too freelanced

[Hyperme.sh]

ICOs are enabling the media to associate cryptocurrency and blockchains with money laundering, terrorism, North Korea, World War 3, etc:

These useful idiots are playing right into the plan of how Bitcoin would globalize (while necessarily becoming entirely centralized mining as has recently been proved in research!) while the scammers would drive the excuse for massive regulation:

It's a very good time to be a money launderer, and you can thank cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrencies have exploded in popularity in recent years that has led to a red-hot fundraising trend where start-ups bring in millions of dollars in capital by issuing virtual tokens to investors in exchange for money.

Initial coin offerings (ICOs) have become a primary means of fundraising for projects built on blockchain technology. Companies create and issue digital tokens that can be used to pay for goods and services on their platform or stashed away as an investment. They put out whitepapers describing the platform, software or product they're trying to build, and then people buy those tokens using widely-accepted cryptocurrencies (like bitcoin and ethereum) or fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar.

All of that is done without any regulatory oversight, and that has regulators — and members of the financial industry — worried about the potential of widespread money laundering and fraud.

ICOs are enabling the media to associate cryptocurrency and blockchains with money laundering, terrorism, North Korea, World War 3, etc..

I think the differences in approach here is due to different world view of the negative value of democracy and the reality of democracy (i.e. what really happened on 9/11 that everybody really wants to sweep under the rug).

Let the competition of ideas, designs, concepts, and financial structuring ensue.

Disclaimer: IANAL. This is not legal advice.

Had a talk with someone from China about Bitcoin yesterday. I was looking at coinmarketcap and he asked what I was looking at. I told him about bitcoins, and he told me he heard about it and said it was just gambling. He had a pretty negative opinion on it, and nothing I could have said would change his mind. I think a lot of people still equate crypto to online drugs and hackings. It will probably take a long while for crypto to go mainstream […]

I see, here in the Netherlands, mainly negative views on crypto and bitcoin in the media. Today there was an article in a national newspaper about ICO's that was mostly talking about scams, pyramid games, easy ways for companies to generate money without having to deal with regulations, etc.

These views are caused by many (the majority?) of ICO's that indeed seem scammy and fraudulent. The actually legit well-managed ICOs suffer from this image. For mainstraim adaptation, it certainly has to be regulated in some way.

Another thing is the association many people have between bitcoin and the black market/criminals. Furthermore, people don't understand the technology so it is 'scary'. I think mass adoption can only start with some viral campaign that educates people and makes them enthusiastic, but that is only possible after regulations have been adopted that make people feel secure against hackers and scams.

It's too easy to scam or to be scammed for common people at cryptoworld. It's really anarchy. Government institutes trying to adopt this market but it will take pretty much time.

Bitcoin has been the escape method for capital fleeing China. With the looming trade war on the horizon, the Chinese government will have absolutely NO CHOICE but to come in and regulate bitcoin as its citizens now account for 98% of all trading. From a regulatory perspective, the days of passive treatment of bitcoin may come to an end. Bitcoin has soared only because it has been the mechanism to obtain foreign exchange and take capital out of China. This could easily be considered an illegal operation, such as money laundering, to justify closing that window.

Of course, you have the zealots who preach bitcoin as the alternative to the dollar that they cannot shut down. All they need to do is declare bitcoins illegal and the PRESUMPTION of being in bitcoin is a PRESUMPTION of being a criminal. They are already using terms like “CASH IS FOR CRIMINALS” and if you have a few thousand in cash, they just confiscate it presuming you are criminal under Civil Asset Forfeiture without having to prove you committed a crime or charging you.

Keep in mind we are dancing with the devil. There are no rules — just ruthless self-interest. They will do whatever it takes to survive. They will not relinquish power willingly.

[DrToken]

No, of course. ICO is just an instrument in human's hands. So, the right answer is scam ICO without any regulation

[mayan251]

Maybe you're right. It depends on what you think.
Because ICO really does support entities right now. Many of them are air coins.
Only a white paper starts with ICO. No actual landing of the project.
Some countries have become aware of the seriousness of the problem.
After all, a coin out of the white book. There is a certain risk.
Many projects took the ICO wheel on foot. Therefore, there are certain grounds for prohibition.

[Hyperme.sh]

ICO's killing crypto

Whether it is good or bad, we may have unstopped ICO phenomenon underway! Oh my.

After all my ranting about the illegality of ICOs, I stumbled today on the idea that forking and airdrop may be a way to convert an ICO issued token into a non-security.

Thus in theory for example the EOS tokens would end up living on (as re-issued in an air drop) outside the jurisdiction of any securities regulators in the world.

Hahaha. The regulators suddenly become irrelevant and can be ignored?

Disclaimer: IANAL. This is not legal advice.

[joshki]

Without ICOs, there would be no Ethereum. Without Ethereum, the crypto market wouldn't have grown so fast. It's attracting a lot of capital right now.

Ethereum is facilitating a wave of shitcoins and most will never see the light of day. The coin itself is a shitcoin that can't even perform a basic function of a cryptocurrency i.e. multisig. The only thing propping it up is the perpetual token sale whereby investors have to buy ETH to buy said token. It was setup to be a crypto ponzi scheme to attract regulators to this market and that's essentially what it is - a trojan horse.

https://news.bitcoin.com/ethereums-parity-client-users-lose-millions-multi-sig-hack/

It's backed by big bankers from Wall Street who have developed an automated shitcoin factory with ETH as the center spoke of the wheel. A nice PSD will get you 30 million in funding sometimes more. Vitalik Buterin is nothing more than a front man for the big bankers. They figured he was some kind of authority in Bitcoin since he co-founded bitcoinmagazine.com so they hyped him up as the next Albert Einstein and all the idiots on Main Street ate it up.

ICOs have been around way before Etheruem was even an idea. The reason why it didn't attract regulators is because it required a minimum technical understanding of the Bitcoin protocol to launch a cryptocurrency to hold a premine for the ICO. Now every dip shit in silicon valley and on Wall Street is trying to launch their own token through it. Some even promoting integration with VISA and Mastercard.. Bitcoin and cryptocurrency was never meant to co-exist with VISA or any other payment processor for that matter - it was meant to replace it.

Satoshi Nakamoto: "Bitcoin can scale larger than the Visa Network"
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1391350.0

Silicon valley and wall street are co-opting Satoshi's movement to co-exist with the current system instead of replacing it. If it keeps going down this road this movement will die and be remembered as a tulip bulb bubble. By investing in these ICOs and supporting Ethereum YOU are responsible for contributing to the downfall of this legendary movement that has the potential to completely disrupt the central banking system and the debt slavery cycle that has imprisoned mankind for over 100 years.

Shitcoin projects like Civic who are promoting identity based cryptocurrency as a de facto standard are also contributing to the downfall of this movement. I wouldn't be surprised if that is a government project meant to derail this movement and discredit Bitcoin and it's counterparts. Why do we need identity based cryptocurrency to replace Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency? When you strip away all the fancy GUI wallets and the mobile applications all cryptocurrency is just data on your computer that you can transfer through a transmission protocol. If an identity is mandated for a file on your computer, then where does this end? Must an meme or gif also have a digital identity signature? How about a word document you send to a journalist through a peer to peer transmission? Do you see where this is going?

https://cryptoinsider.com/civic-blockchain-solution-combat-cybercrime/

The downfall of crypto was premeditated by the central banks:

1) China ban
2) Dimon discredits Bitcoin ("This will end badly"- Dimon)
3) G-8 slaps North Korea with sactions
4) China cuts trade ties with North Korea

What comes next (end goal)

5) All governments of the world accuse North Korea of using Bitcoin to fund their weapons program and attempt to impose draconian regulation (this is coming and will mark the biggest test for Cryptocurrency)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-11/north-korea-hackers-step-up-bitcoin-attacks-amid-rising-tensions
http://www.businessinsider.com/north-korea-allegedly-stole-bitcoin-from-south-korea-2017-4
https://www.coindesk.com/report-north-korea-targets-south-koreas-bitcoin-exchanges-cyber-attacks/
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/12/north-korea-hackers-trying-to-steal-bitcoin-evade-sanctions.html

This narrative is the same one pushed by the mainstream media with regards to Iraq and it's WMD program. Similarly, they cite no evidence of North Korea using Bitcoin yet they'll keep regurgitating this talking point until it the banhammer comes down. The Potcoin project is also to blame for this facilitating this narrative when they sent Dennis Rodman over there in Potcoin attire.

You make a lot of good points here. There's a lot of scamming going on here, and the regulators are going to come in eventually.

[nguyenxhoang]

Ico gives newer investors a chance at Huge gains given they do there research by weeding out the scams.

[slackcryptoz]

ICO's were a way of fund raising through the digital platform. Here nothing needs to be complicated, because very few go as a scam making an bad impression over the entire cryptocurrency. In my view it also supporting in the growth of digital currency, because lot of people come to know about bitcoin after knowing about ICO's.

[silent17]

I dont think ICO is killing crypto, at the first place, crypto is popular now because of ICO. Although we can deny that their are many scam ICO.

[NelfiNovita]

no one can kill crypto because crypto has been born in trading and crypto success is usability as currency and accepted as currency. now ICO is very popular but you have to be careful in choosing it because many ICO is a fraud.

[Candyflipboy]

Only bad ICO is hurt BTC.

BTC is too sensitive.

Just 1 great ICO will bring back BTC

Maybe you can name TOP 3 project that could do that. I am newbie but in my opinion those are nice one: Enigma ICO, UnikoinGold, Confideal

[tsutiy]

Recent news of the imminent closer of many Chinese exchanges is the direct result of them dealing in ICOs, I've been shocked for the longest time other countries have done so, allowing ICO's to fly under regulators radar, however its only just a matter of time.

Most of the governments are too slow in terms of legislation and regulation. So it will inevitable happen, the only question is when.

[anzach87]

i dont think so that killing crypto as investors we have to choose where we invest , even we invest in bad icos this is not killing crypto  is our responsibility to make a good research so we limit the scammers icos

[amirsambudi]

if there is many ico's scam, it can kill the world of cryptocurrency slowly, so it is unfortunate indeed there are some unscrupulous people doing it. investors should also be protected and there are even more stringent regulations to keep this period still going on

[kotajikikox]

have want to destroy the ICO but i think killing of ICO are not good idea's because the coins is came from the ICO to become potential coins and to row in the altcoin to become valuable.

[Xenrise]

Is it true? I think that it is not. In fact, ICOS are making the cryptocurrency world alive. That is my interpretation, don't mistaken it. That is one of the things to check if the crypto is still alive.

[zypa]

Who decided that btc is the only viable solution. Perhaps from a these new coins the future ones will rise on the wishes of the old coins. Nobody knows really who will win in the long term.

[stopatnever]

The movement in cryptocurrency prices in the past month confirm that this thread is dumb.

[maereglapo]

News from mainstream medias were influenced by the people who joined the scam ICOs and lose their money thats why in the eyes of other people crypto is a scam but its not.

[suncokreten]

ICOs are not killing crypto, they actually keep it alive. For crypto to advance and go mainstream we need good projects and good ideas - just take a look at Powerledger, it just started a month ago and already got government grants.

What is killing crypto are ICOs with huge market caps that fail in the end, but also all of the useless BTC/ETH forks (known as money grabs). If we could somehow forbid or just start ignoring all of the forks, there wouldn't be bloodbath in alt market.

[Xodor]

Too much scam has divorced, normal ICO is harder to find among a large number of projects, it is necessary to complicate the processes of ICO and to reconsider the conditions for obtaining smart contracts