Why I am quitting ICO's

[Jeremiesaranza]

I decided to quit ICO's. From December till now I invested about 5 eth into several ICO's. Invest what you can miss, this is what was able to miss.

Right now the first few of my ICO's have reached the exchanges. Most are under performing, but this is related to the overall dip (can be read everywhere). I understand, but ICO token economics have changed also.

• massive hardcaps
• most is sold in pre-sale to big investors, leaving scraps for crowdsale
• much attention to marketing, less to working product or realistic time lines
• immediately available on EtherDelta and IDEX, sure sign of little interest in token economics/future
• no lock on pre-sale tokens, whales take their x2, x3 or x-whatever as soon as possible (I would probably have done the same). Prices drop to below ICO price.
• too many ICO's without distinctive differences.
• too many ICO's in general
• too much tokens reserved for team/marketing
• many ICO's don't even have a crowdsale anymore (which perhaps is a good thing as the little investors are protected this way)
• ICO prizes are quite high. 1eth = 1000/4000 tokens is pretty common, but with a hc of 40 million, this will not easily go x10 or more.

I was 'unlucky' to miss out on a few ICO's besides the ones I was able to participate in. Afterwards I am glad, since I was able to pick most up at a fraction of the ICO price.

Important as ever: DYOR as not all ICO's have a genuine solution to a genuine problem. Some may seem like a fantastic solution, but often it is marketing combined with a strong team, and not so much a great working product.

And who am I? I am definitely a nobody , but still wanted to share my experiences and perhaps save people from thinking of getting on board of the next x100 ICO

p.s. when a Telegram has over 20k subscribers all screaming 'when lambo' with endless rows of animated gifs, you may also wonder if this is a serious block chain solution which will revolutionize 'x'

No I've never quit for icos I must enjoy it work for it and have a good communication about bitcoin

[DikkieD]

I wrote the OP to make people aware to do good research, since once you start to actually look into most ICO's fomo takes over fast and you may end up with an underperforming token or coin. Not to say this will not result into massive profits much later down the road, but by then you would have been able to pick it up for the same price, perhaps a slightly higher price (but still ok since you were able to track progress a bit longer) or for a much lower price (which is the case with many ICO's that ended between the 1st of January until now).

I wanted to warm people to realize that there are so many ICO's nowadays, and many of them simply will not lead to massive gains in terms of your initial investment. If you believe in the project, it shouldn't matter, but if you are trying to make a quick buck...better be aware that most red flags can be easily spotted.

[Willitivity]

Your points are very clear and well articulated. That's some of the basic truths in ICOs that are still unknown to some persons, especially the newbies. But on the other hand, when you get a good ICO to invest in, it is always a thing of joy. Especially projects that have a prototype of their working product and those ones promising things that are so abstract.

[Mattacoin]

It's ironic reading posts from people warning others that ICOs are bad when they are wearing a bounty signature and Avatar.

I like to put 10 to 25 percent of my crypto portfolio into ICOs. That being said, do your research because a lot are scams or will never make it. Ensure it has utility, a great team, a quality roadmap and that the price makes sense. Some are way too generous to developers and insiders, so read what the pros have to say, what others have to say and the whitepaper. Follow the telegram chat and don't fomo into a bigger bonus, it's better to wait and do your research.

[Zeeks]

I decided to quit ICO's. From December till now I invested about 5 eth into several ICO's. Invest what you can miss, this is what was able to miss.

Right now the first few of my ICO's have reached the exchanges. Most are under performing, but this is related to the overall dip (can be read everywhere). I understand, but ICO token economics have changed also.

• massive hardcaps
• most is sold in pre-sale to big investors, leaving scraps for crowdsale
• much attention to marketing, less to working product or realistic time lines
• immediately available on EtherDelta and IDEX, sure sign of little interest in token economics/future
• no lock on pre-sale tokens, whales take their x2, x3 or x-whatever as soon as possible (I would probably have done the same). Prices drop to below ICO price.
• too many ICO's without distinctive differences.
• too many ICO's in general
• too much tokens reserved for team/marketing
• many ICO's don't even have a crowdsale anymore (which perhaps is a good thing as the little investors are protected this way)
• ICO prizes are quite high. 1eth = 1000/4000 tokens is pretty common, but with a hc of 40 million, this will not easily go x10 or more.

I was 'unlucky' to miss out on a few ICO's besides the ones I was able to participate in. Afterwards I am glad, since I was able to pick most up at a fraction of the ICO price.

Important as ever: DYOR as not all ICO's have a genuine solution to a genuine problem. Some may seem like a fantastic solution, but often it is marketing combined with a strong team, and not so much a great working product.

And who am I? I am definitely a nobody , but still wanted to share my experiences and perhaps save people from thinking of getting on board of the next x100 ICO

p.s. when a Telegram has over 20k subscribers all screaming 'when lambo' with endless rows of animated gifs, you may also wonder if this is a serious block chain solution which will revolutionize 'x'

I think pre ico prices and sales are the big culprit here. Some people and groups seem to get too much of a discount.

[entrepmind23]

I was 'unlucky' to miss out on a few ICO's besides the ones I was able to participate in. Afterwards I am glad, since I was able to pick most up at a fraction of the ICO price.

Though I can get a bonus when I buy during the ICO, there is still a chance I would be able to buy the coin at a discount when it is already in the exchanges because of the dip may it be temporary or not so I prefer to buy the coin that I like when it is already in the exchanges. Price would dip upon the launching in an exchange because of various reasons may it be the whales dumping their coins or the bounty hunters selling their shares. This would be a good opportunity to buy the coin especially if it drops below ICO price which is happening now to most ICOs launch recently.

p.s. when a Telegram has over 20k subscribers all screaming 'when lambo' with endless rows of animated gifs, you may also wonder if this is a serious block chain solution which will revolutionize 'x'

So many telegram messages and most of it I can see are "when exchange" without even bothering asking what are the developments of the project then I also wonder if they are more concern of the use case or the short term profit. Sometimes it is much better to join those channels that have few members because they are talking about the project and not about when would be the next hype of the coin.

[Lora_ng15]

I started studying ICO only this year, and I plan to study this topic in more detail

[DikkieD]

Again the same old topics about ICOs, yet still nobody is instruction others on how to do a proper research, all empty words and more people scammed everyday.

Weren't you able to extract many things to keep in mind when DYOR when it comes to ICO's? I think my TS contains quite a few pointers to take into account to decide whether an ICO will have any chance...

[DikkieD]

It's ironic reading posts from people warning others that ICOs are bad when they are wearing a bounty signature and Avatar.

I like to put 10 to 25 percent of my crypto portfolio into ICOs. That being said, do your research because a lot are scams or will never make it. Ensure it has utility, a great team, a quality roadmap and that the price makes sense. Some are way too generous to developers and insiders, so read what the pros have to say, what others have to say and the whitepaper. Follow the telegram chat and don't fomo into a bigger bonus, it's better to wait and do your research.

I've seen this argument come up a few times (here and at other related topics).

Deciding to participate in an ICO and simply making a few coins by promoting an ICO are two different things. I have ample time to do both proper research and also to contribute in ways an upcoming project may benefit from (hence my participation in a few projects). I never said that I thought the projects/ICO's I did participate in weren't viable, only that some had such token metrics that it wasn't that weird after all to see prices tank once at exchanges. And based on that I quit participating in ICO crowdsales.

Me having a project in my sig doesn't change things. I still think there are great ICO's. I promote ICO's through means of a bounty program only when I feel they could become a great project later on (or at least I hope so). I simply decided to not participate in crowdsales anymore, unless maybe when I spot a real game changer. Not sure if my writings/actions are ironic or hypocritical per se, but I do get your point.

I mainly wanted to try and have a critical view on those non-scam ICO's, not the obvious scams. Among the non-scam ICO's there is a huge chance that if you participate in the regular crowdsale, you will see your investment going to almost zero once it has hit the exchanges. In that case maybe better to wait until listing, even if the research you have done (team, project, metrics, product, use-case and such) doesn't have any real red flags.

[mu_enrico]

I decided to quit ICO's. From December till now I invested about 5 eth into several ICO's. Invest what you can miss, this is what was able to miss.

Right now the first few of my ICO's have reached the exchanges. Most are under performing, but this is related to the overall dip (can be read everywhere). I understand, but ICO token economics have changed also.

• massive hardcaps
• most is sold in pre-sale to big investors, leaving scraps for crowdsale
• much attention to marketing, less to working product or realistic time lines
• immediately available on EtherDelta and IDEX, sure sign of little interest in token economics/future
• no lock on pre-sale tokens, whales take their x2, x3 or x-whatever as soon as possible (I would probably have done the same). Prices drop to below ICO price.
• too many ICO's without distinctive differences.
• too many ICO's in general
• too much tokens reserved for team/marketing
• many ICO's don't even have a crowdsale anymore (which perhaps is a good thing as the little investors are protected this way)
• ICO prizes are quite high. 1eth = 1000/4000 tokens is pretty common, but with a hc of 40 million, this will not easily go x10 or more.

I was 'unlucky' to miss out on a few ICO's besides the ones I was able to participate in. Afterwards I am glad, since I was able to pick most up at a fraction of the ICO price.

Important as ever: DYOR as not all ICO's have a genuine solution to a genuine problem. Some may seem like a fantastic solution, but often it is marketing combined with a strong team, and not so much a great working product.

And who am I? I am definitely a nobody , but still wanted to share my experiences and perhaps save people from thinking of getting on board of the next x100 ICO

p.s. when a Telegram has over 20k subscribers all screaming 'when lambo' with endless rows of animated gifs, you may also wonder if this is a serious block chain solution which will revolutionize 'x'

Agree about this, i tried 2 ICOs personally and very disappointed with the results.
People only get into ICOs for short term profit
Also after i dig deeply, 99% of them is crap
However, i'm still open minded about ICOs and willing to invest if its really really good
Just try to be more careful

[DikkieD]

Agree about this, i tried 2 ICOs personally and very disappointed with the results.
People only get into ICOs for short term profit
Also after i dig deeply, 99% of them is crap
However, i'm still open minded about ICOs and willing to invest if its really really good
Just try to be more careful

The only positive thing is that there will (probably) be a 2nd chance for those underperforming ICO's of lately. Once market goes up again and overall mc rises, chances are that those ICO's with actual (real world) potential will come out victorious with bigger gains compared to your ICO investment.

The only problem with this that others were able to buy in after ICO at exchanges for a much lower price

[futureofeth]

Again the same old topics about ICOs, yet still nobody is instruction others on how to do a proper research, all empty words and more people scammed everyday.

People are being scammed by the owners of the company, they do the activities how other legit companies are doing. So these things make people confuse about choosing the right ICO to get more benefits. That's why we need regulations for ICO inorder to control these scams.

[monomix]

TS points are very well thought. though it doesnt mean there is no good project. you have to spent more time on analysis, that is the only solution. where else you find that returns? if out of 10 you win 2-3 great ones - that will do, i think 

[arthotdog]

Interesting point of view.
I'm on exactly opposite end - I'm going deeper with ICO's this year.

Your points are pretty valid, but this mean you just need to be more peaky where you are investing. And I'm always and only buying during the pre-ico phase, avoiding those ICO's with massive pre-sale.

same here,i have passed the opportunity to make great income last year as I focused on my daytrading and didnt listen to my friends that theres a good profit in participating ico.for a small investment you may gain multiple earnings.now i have invested in two ico hopefully will comes better at the end.

[cryptojac17]

Your points are very clear and well articulated. That's some of the basic truths in ICOs that are still unknown to some persons, especially the newbies. But on the other hand, when you get a good ICO to invest in, it is always a thing of joy. Especially projects that have a prototype of their working product and those ones promising things that are so abstract.

I think that your verdict about ICO is to generalized in fact not all of the ICO s are under performing in fact there are also ICO who do well  and many are benefited
Specially those ICO who’s working product are good,it is not about profit why I’m supporting ICO it about innovation there are working product that worth investing like about environment using renewable energy. Aside from profit  lets us think of usefulness of the working product that worth support.

[StGermain]

I am ok with people leaving the ICOs... more space for me. But, yes, you should quit if you can´t tell a horse for a rabbit, because you´ll be getting mostly rabbits.

[Birdiebig]

I think too fast development of cryptocurrency and ICO. The ICO scam has become more complex, because the profits generated by the ICO are huge. Because there is no explicit form with ICO project creation organizations, the investment risk is very high

[Hazir]

I decided to quit ICO's.

Amen! I hope that more people will realize that sooner than later. ICOs are not helping to boost crypto-economy push adoption or provide us with valuable solutions or innovation.
We have too many ICOs, too many projects, and too very few ICOs applies the principles of independence, integrity, ethical conduct, due diligence or fair presentation.
I feel like ICOs are followed mainly by people who think that Bitcoin is too expensive and their magical ICO token will one day beat BTC... yeah right.

[dzhan]

Well I agree firstly that investing in ICO projects is always risky, and that profit is not guaranteed like many newbies think. It is hard to find the most promising projects which are numbered. But in the other side, if you invest in the greatest ICOs you have the potential to make huge earning, and already many crypto users earned thousands of Dollars by investing in such projects.

[berungan]

many people are crazy about joining ICO, they think to get results from ICO. need to know also, many ICO under the guise of fraud as well. do not get too ambitious, think carefully first.