3 kinds of ICOs — Protect yourself

[Vaultbank.io]

Great thread. Definitely tons of very important information here for everyone. Thank you for posting.

[Digitalbitcoin]

Great article includes every single thing that must have to think before making investment in cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin is the pioneer of Digital Virtual Currency, after Bitcoin there are numerous number of altcoins are in market, but many of them are shit coins.

Information mention in post is really helpful for everyone weather it many newbie or experienced. Many newbies get trapped in such scam ICO, and such user lost their trust in cryptocurrency.

[wsmolive]

Amazing thread!!   A man can write the comment with the attitude of being serious and conscientious.  Give the thumbs-up!!

[davey76]

This is a great thread! It is better than "the ICO X is a scam" or "Invest in ICO X" threads ... I rather read some good arguments why I should or shouldn't invest in an ICO. Thanks!

[PPleaseman]

Thanks for the read. i like the tips with the countries and dont invest in something you dont understand (although its hard)

Cheers

[larks500]

Very nice Article! Thank you

[JHR1963]

Very usefull stuff thanks.

[jlp]

How about Genesis Vision mate?

Genesis Vision’s team is from Russia, which does not have extradition agreements with much of the world. This means that if they screw you, there is little you can do. Do not expect the Russian government to extradite the team to your country.

They have a nice rating from icorating.com. However, I’ll always have a question in the back of my mind: Did Russia pay off icorating to give a better rating to Genesis Vision? But, I could be wrong.

Their project is very specific to forex trading. The team claims to have experience in this in St. Petersburg. I didn’t know that St. Petersburg was a major forex trading center. I would’ve thought of London, New York, Paris or Frankfurt. If you understand forex trading and you think that Genesis Vision can execute, then you should invest. For me, I see the execution to be very difficult. They would need a large budget for marketing and outbound corporate sales force to get forex traders to sign up to their program. If the traders are already performing well and making good money, why would they want prospects (potential clients) to be able to scrutinize them more through Genesis Vision?

If I was a forex trader, I would wonder why I would want to sign up to Genesis Vision, in order to be scrutinized by prospects and compared to other traders. Genesis Vision will tell me that I will get more clients. But I will agree only if I’m a better than average trader. If I'm a below average trader, Genesis Vision will show this to all of my clients, which will prompt them to leave me to go to an above average trader.

This is what I think will likely happen, though I do not know for sure. Let’s say there are 100 traders in the world. If you are among the top 50 traders, you will sign up to Genesis Vision. If you are among the bottom 50 traders, you will not. Now, there are 50 traders using Genesis Vision. After a while, the bottom 25 traders will drop out because they don’t want prospects to see how they are underperforming. Now, there are 25 traders using Genesis Vision. After a while, the bottom 12 traders will drop out. If this trend continues, there will only be one trader using Genesis Vision.

I stopped reading their white paper after this. I do not know for sure that Genesis Vision lacks potential. I do not think they are scamming. I just think they have a flaw in their idea, I don’t see the potential and I think the execution will be difficult. Others may think differently. Maybe the rest of the white paper has good stuff that I didn’t read.

Also, I'm not sure why a new token is needed for this. Any competitor can create a similar system and charge clients in USD, EUR, YEN, BTC or ETH. The competitor's pitch can be: "Why bother going through the hassle of getting a new Genesis token that is used only between you and Genesis, when you can simply pay us with USD, EUR, YEN, BTC or ETH? What are you going to do with your Genesis tokens after you get data about your trader? Is it a one time use?"

Also, their white paper is very complicated to forex. If you read it all and fully understand their business, then you should invest. Otherwise, reconsider.

[parassinghal]

Awsome thread. This post is having most helpfull information reagarding ICOs. I have also seen a lot of scam ICOs, which i was not able to identify that they are scams but with this information now i can easily identify the real ICOs.

[Crypto Batman]

How about Genesis Vision mate?

Genesis Vision’s team is from Russia, which does not have extradition agreements with much of the world. This means that if they screw you, there is little you can do. Do not expect the Russian government to extradite the team to your country.

They have a nice rating from icorating.com. However, I’ll always have a question in the back of my mind: Did Russia pay off icorating to give a better rating to Genesis Vision? But, I could be wrong.

Their project is very specific to forex trading. The team claims to have experience in this in St. Petersburg. I didn’t know that St. Petersburg was a major forex trading center. I would’ve thought of London, New York, Paris or Frankfurt. If you understand forex trading and you think that Genesis Vision can execute, then you should invest. For me, I see the execution to be very difficult. They would need a large budget for marketing and outbound corporate sales force to get forex traders to sign up to their program. If the traders are already performing well and making good money, why would they want prospects (potential clients) to be able to scrutinize them more through Genesis Vision?

If I was a forex trader, I would wonder why I would want to sign up to Genesis Vision, in order to be scrutinized by prospects and compared to other traders. Genesis Vision will tell me that I will get more clients. But I will agree only if I’m a better than average trader. If I'm a below average trader, Genesis Vision will show this to all of my clients, which will prompt them to leave me to go to an above average trader.

This is what I think will likely happen, though I do not know for sure. Let’s say there are 100 traders in the world. If you are among the top 50 traders, you will sign up to Genesis Vision. If you are among the bottom 50 traders, you will not. Now, there are 50 traders using Genesis Vision. After a while, the bottom 25 traders will drop out because they don’t want prospects to see how they are underperforming. Now, there are 25 traders using Genesis Vision. After a while, the bottom 12 traders will drop out. If this trend continues, there will only be one trader using Genesis Vision.

I stopped reading their white paper after this. I do not know for sure that Genesis Vision lacks potential. I do not think they are scamming. I just think they have a flaw in their idea, I don’t see the potential and I think the execution will be difficult. Others may think differently. Maybe the rest of the white paper has good stuff that I didn’t read.

Also, I'm not sure why a new token is needed for this. Any competitor can create a similar system and charge clients in USD, EUR, YEN, BTC or ETH. The competitor's pitch can be: "Why bother going through the hassle of getting a new Genesis token that is used only between you and Genesis, when you can simply pay us with USD, EUR, YEN, BTC or ETH? What are you going to do with your Genesis tokens after you get data about your trader? Is it a one time use?"

Also, their white paper is very complicated to forex. If you read it all and fully understand their business, then you should invest. Otherwise, reconsider.

Completely agree. They take the existing Mutual Fund Concept and rename with Cryptoterms with the promise of solving non-existent problems. Iconomi has more chance to succeed than Genesis Vision.

[kloudz79]

This thread was wonderfull and educative for dummies like me who like to love invest with any ico. Well not every ico is scam, but may end up with fail or success.

Thanks man.

Great job.

[x86Daddy]

yes, that's is a good topic! You have provided much useful information to people who are investing in coins or tokens. Be careful with what you don't understand! 

[Paycoinzzz]

How about Genesis Vision mate?

Genesis Vision’s team is from Russia, which does not have extradition agreements with much of the world. This means that if they screw you, there is little you can do. Do not expect the Russian government to extradite the team to your country.

They have a nice rating from icorating.com. However, I’ll always have a question in the back of my mind: Did Russia pay off icorating to give a better rating to Genesis Vision? But, I could be wrong.

Their project is very specific to forex trading. The team claims to have experience in this in St. Petersburg. I didn’t know that St. Petersburg was a major forex trading center. I would’ve thought of London, New York, Paris or Frankfurt. If you understand forex trading and you think that Genesis Vision can execute, then you should invest. For me, I see the execution to be very difficult. They would need a large budget for marketing and outbound corporate sales force to get forex traders to sign up to their program. If the traders are already performing well and making good money, why would they want prospects (potential clients) to be able to scrutinize them more through Genesis Vision?

If I was a forex trader, I would wonder why I would want to sign up to Genesis Vision, in order to be scrutinized by prospects and compared to other traders. Genesis Vision will tell me that I will get more clients. But I will agree only if I’m a better than average trader. If I'm a below average trader, Genesis Vision will show this to all of my clients, which will prompt them to leave me to go to an above average trader.

This is what I think will likely happen, though I do not know for sure. Let’s say there are 100 traders in the world. If you are among the top 50 traders, you will sign up to Genesis Vision. If you are among the bottom 50 traders, you will not. Now, there are 50 traders using Genesis Vision. After a while, the bottom 25 traders will drop out because they don’t want prospects to see how they are underperforming. Now, there are 25 traders using Genesis Vision. After a while, the bottom 12 traders will drop out. If this trend continues, there will only be one trader using Genesis Vision.

I stopped reading their white paper after this. I do not know for sure that Genesis Vision lacks potential. I do not think they are scamming. I just think they have a flaw in their idea, I don’t see the potential and I think the execution will be difficult. Others may think differently. Maybe the rest of the white paper has good stuff that I didn’t read.

Also, I'm not sure why a new token is needed for this. Any competitor can create a similar system and charge clients in USD, EUR, YEN, BTC or ETH. The competitor's pitch can be: "Why bother going through the hassle of getting a new Genesis token that is used only between you and Genesis, when you can simply pay us with USD, EUR, YEN, BTC or ETH? What are you going to do with your Genesis tokens after you get data about your trader? Is it a one time use?"

Also, their white paper is very complicated to forex. If you read it all and fully understand their business, then you should invest. Otherwise, reconsider.

Of course they need to spend some money to pay for ICOrating listed on top.
You also know most of the ICO reviews are make money from this thing and ICOrating is aslo no exception.

[thepo1m]

From allthe point you raised, the most important is never to invest in a project you don't understand, this is a common practice now people are following crowd mentality especially listing to all these youtubers promoting ICO and people don't know most of them are only doing their job they are paid to do

[annazaitun87]

how to know with easy if some project ICO recommended or not, because many people let to join with more ico to get the profit. I think some idea if the developers want to start their project may be they are need to complete their document self.

[awilliams]

so many crap coins out there lol. Always research and look at team, idea, and proof.

Good example of a good ico is unikoingold and waves. Look into those

[rube08]

That is a pretty well thought out thread.  In the recent days, you see a lot of airdrops ebtc, eltc, eethereum, ethis and ethat.  Those coins do not have any substance and they only go by their names to gain value.  Unfortunately, a lot of people invest in the name and not thinking what the future of the coin might be.

[jlp]

Zonto is very high risk.

Zonto has a business plan. I’ve rarely read a business plan that was so filled with jargon, yet meaningless. It has tons of hard to understand and disconnected features and function. No benefits. After 10 pages, I couldn’t read any more. Maybe they’re onto something, but I couldn’t figure it out.

It looks like they grabbed every jargon they can find and threw them into the business plan and white paper, to see what will stick.

Their white paper has 14 pages of text. 5 of those are about their ICO and bounty. This tells you where their priority is.

They will give ZONTO coins to users for free. Businesses can get ZONTO coins from users (I assume from selling services) and pay Zonto for advertising.

From what I can tell, they are in the social network field.

This is a high risk project for these reasons:

• Google has access to BILLIONS of users and top technologies. Google+ tried to compete against Facebook and they failed. You are dreaming if you think a rag tag group is going to successfully compete against Facebook. Creating a new token does not mean that you will become a competitor to Facebook.
  
• Even if Zonto gets millions of users, it does not mean it will make a profit. Facebook lost money for most of the first 9 years. For year ending 2013, Facebook made $1.73 profit per user. Twitter is still losing money.

Even if Zonto can miraculously come up with better technology than Google or Facebook, it doesn’t mean it will get lots of users for these reasons:

• NETWORK EFFECT. Nobody at Facebook is going to leave their 200 friends to go to Zonto. I’ve seen several ICO projects trying to be the next social network. They are dreaming and most likely will fail. They claim that they will get users because the users will be paid. From whom? The money has to ultimately come from advertisers.
  
• Monero, PIVX, Zcash, Dash and NEM have better technology than Bitcoin in terms of privacy, lower energy usage and (currently) speed. But people buy Bitcoin because of Brand awareness. Better technology does not always win. There are hundreds of altcoins trying to dethrone Bitcoin and they cannot.

An analogy of losing money for Zonto would mean that they are giving more coins to users than they are receiving from advertisers. This equates to inflation, which equates to devaluation of the coin. So, if Zonto is losing money like Twitter, or Facebook in the first several years, its coin will devalue during that time.

If Zonto follows the same EXPLOSIVE path that Facebook had, which would be an absolute miracle, its users will watch their ZONTO coins devalue for 9 years before it starts increasing in value. Would you want to be one of these users?

The difference between Twitter and Zonto is that Twitter can always go to the secondary markets and sell more stock to raise capital, in order to pay for its annual losses. Can Zonto do that? Is it going to host an ICO every year?

Another problem is on the advertiser side. I assume that the advertiser buys Zonto coins on an exchange, in order to pay Zonto. This adds a layer of hassle for the advertiser that he doesn't have to put up with when he advertises on other sites.

[JaFa]

It's probably safer just to skip most ICOs and wait for the coins to be listed on exchanges.  If they can make it that far, you'll get a fairly good idea how solid a project is based on how quickly the ICO buyers dump their coins onto the market 

[meta100000]

Really nice thread, very informative. Thanks for sharing with us!!!