Pasting this in from the other 'XSPEC = SCAM' thread:
Look, I hold a few XSPEC for fun, but I'm by no means a blind fan. XSPEC has strengths and it has weaknesses. But this kind of poorly-thought-out BS is pointless, misleading, and not helpful to anyone.
Some facts, all of which are easily verifiable by anyone who wishes to do so:
- XSPEC is largely based on ShadowCash code, with the addition of integrated TOR. The fact that the first version of XSPEC partially/mostly copied ShadowCash code pissed off some people, and led to a lot of FUD around XSPEC's ICO. Now, there are two important points to take away from this: First, almost every project in cryptocurrency is a copy of some other project or combination of projects. That's just a fact of life when the code is all open source, and it doesn't mean the resulting new projects are scams (they may or may not be, but that is independent of the copying). Second, it is now more than a year after XSPEC's ICO, during which time the XSPEC devs have made considerable changes to the original code. XSPEC is now very much its own project (and, ironically, XSPEC was actually copied recently by TokenPay).
Most coins are sold to a small amount of holders.
1000 People / Address own 99% of the coin
So why it this scam? When those holders drop their coins the market will fall like a stone.
- XSPEC's ICO was more than a year ago. The distribution is now driven by market forces, not initial sales. Having said that, XSPEC's distribution is, indeed, 99% for the top 1000 addresses. This is what happens with every relatively young, relatively unknown project. I think people in the crypto world forget that even in 2018, crypto is not truly mainstream. As a percentage of the world's population, very few people hold BTC, and XSPEC is much, much, much, much less well-known than BTC. For such projects, the normal progression is 1) most coins are held by a small number of people, many of whom are close to the project; 2) coin experiences a pump; 3) some early adopters take profits, leading to a dump; 4) dump leads to redistribution to a larger group of holders; 5) repeat, with the amplitude of the pump and dump cycle dropping as distribution and market awareness improve. The key point here is that centralized distributions aren't great, but they are a fact of life in the earlier stages of most projects. They are NOT evidence for a scam (i.e., a deliberate attempt to steal money from people based on false information). Over time, if a project continues to follow its development roadmap and deliver on its promises, the distribution will improve.
Beware of this shit coin. They sold most of the coins in the ico to a low amount of people (under 100ppl). This coin is pure pump n dump.
- Again, the ICO was a year ago, and, as is public knowledge, it was mostly unsuccessful because of all the FUDing. So yes, token distribution was not so good then. If anything, the fact that the distribution is now more than 10x greater is a positive sign.
Most of those 99% Holders stake so the amount of XSPEC they get increase.
No sh*t, Sherlock. That is literally why anyone chooses to hold an asset that pays a dividend/interest, whether in crypto or the real world. And anyone who wishes to participate is welcome to do so--it's not like this is only possible for the first X people who buy in or something. Honestly, have you never heard of PoS before?
The coin has a Volume of 5100 BTC but all Exchanger combined (Crytopia with the most Volume) have only 25 BTC.
Since only 50% are staking i dont know why all those Exchanger have such a low Volume.
- First, I'm not sure why anyone would assume that a coin can only be either staking or being actively traded. Why can't someone hold coins on an exchange without actually trading them? Why can't they hold them in an offline wallet because they don't feel comfortable staking, or don't know how? If you look at any PoS coin, you will find that many people still choose to keep their coins offline. This is completely normal.
Second, XSPEC's daily volume is currently about $275,000. A few weeks ago, during the pump, it was about 10x that. Market cap is calculated as the total supply of the asset x the price for one unit of that asset. Take a moment to think about what that means. If I make 1,000,000 AwesomeCoins and I convince one of my friends to buy one for $50, technically AwesomeCoin now has a market cap of $50,000,000. But does that mean I could sell all million AwesomeCoins for $50 each? No, of course not. You couldn't, because a) the supply of coins actually available for sale is much smaller, and b) the pool of buyers is also smaller. THIS IS TRUE OF LITERALLY EVERY ASSET, whether in the real world or in crypto. And it's especially true of PoS coins, where there is an incentive to hold.
The coin has absolutely no marketing and is getting pushed by Groups [...] Avoid this coin and invest somewhere else or lose money. With no marketing, no bigger Exchanger this coin will be a pump n dump until it flopps.
First, the lack of marketing is a deliberate decision by the team, and is not a secret. Marketing will increase later in the development cycle. Second, the XSPEC team feels that centralized exchanges are antithetical to their goals of privacy, and are putting their focus primarily on decentralized exchanges, which will become much more common over time. Again, this is not a secret. Third, no-one can do anything if a group that is unrelated to a project chooses to pump it. Some degree of P&D has taken place in almost every young-ish project in the history of crypto and, as I said above, it is this process that ultimately leads to a fairer distribution and more stable prices.
Now, all of this is a separate question from whether any given person thinks that XSPEC is a good investment for them. True, marketing would help increase adoption, as would getting on more exchanges. On the other hand, marketing before there is a fully realized product can actually do more harm than good by causing extreme P&D. Likewise, there are enough people out there who are concerned about privacy that avoiding decentralized exchanges is seen as a strength by some. Regardless, XSPEC's values and plans are not secret--anyone can read up on them, and decide whether or not they wish to invest.
So: Yes, XSPEC is a relatively young project. Yes, because the devs have chosen not to do much advertising or get on more centralized exchanges until the project is more mature, it is still relatively unknown and the distribution of coins isn't great. XSPEC has chosen to develop its project in a certain way and, as an investor, you either like this approach or you don't. People are free to invest or not as they wish.
But--and this is the important point--NONE OF THE ISSUES RAISED IN THE INITIAL POINT INDICATE A SCAM. At worst, they indicate a bad marketing and development strategy, but that is open for debate, and won't become clear for a long time. Feel free to not invest in XSPEC, but don't spread misinformation.
