Should IPOs be banned from the site? Poll

[anderl]

90% of IPOs on this site have been scams

[Citation needed]

[jballs]

The Original Doge

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sICSyC9u5iI&sns=em

For you young uns. See pets.com wiki.

History does rhyme. 

[tylerbrad85]

Just kill all the IPO's that don't allow Escrows or some proof of a client  

[eddilicious]

Don't ban it.  It tells ppl which is scamcoin.  Otherwise. We need to waste lots of time reading analyzing to identify a scam

[tk808]

90% of IPOs on this site have been scams

[Citation needed]

List of Legit vs scams?


Legit (and working):

1) Nxt
2) Bitgem
Total = under 30btc

(feel free to add more)


Scams:

1) Visacoin
2) Verocoin
3) Neon
4) Shares
5) Shadowcoin
6) Aerocoin
7) Tomatocoin
8 ) Frictionlesscoin
9)Topcoin
Total = over 200btc

(feel free to add more)

[tylerbrad85]

I see both sides to this debate. On one hand developers do need money to make services and such to build a coin up but on the other side they shouldn't as everyone should (In a perfect world) have an equal opportunity to mine and get coins as other people to make it a fair market. Even bitcoin was originally invented to fix problems with our monetary sistem. Satoshi must have put a lot of time (remember  Time=Money) into building bitcoin and did he get much (if any) from it?
Although I personally am looking at bitcoin/alts more and more as shares rather than currency (From trading etc.)
tldr; I am undecided on the matter.

According to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWtNeaZxT54&feature=youtu.be Satoshi owns about 980k BitCoins.  

[r0ach]

I would bet 80% or more of daily payment processing via bitcoin is currently altcoin trading.

So... You really want to try and kill it?

I don't think you understand what this thread is about.  The vast majority of altcoins do not have IPO.  People started to release proof of stake coins using the lie that IPO is necessary to run the proof of stake model such as NXT, Ethereum, etc.  This is false, read the 3rd paragraph in the original post of this thread.

Next, the developers tend to try and hide all the code and not make anything open source for these IPO coins.  After enough community outrage, some release it, others will resist and eventually navigate cryptocurrency to a closed source model.  This is another huge negative of the IPO scheme that I didn't even mention in the original post.  Bitcoin is supposed to be an open source model.

If you don't start banning these clowns from trying to sell their IPO scams on the website, while trying to profit off something that's supposed to be open source, eventually you will have Bank of America itself trying to sell you their own IPO scam on the forum a year from now.  Nobody wins except scammers and a handful of random developers, 99.99% loses.

[kelsey]

110% agree with OP, well put.

[jballs]

I would bet 80% or more of daily payment processing via bitcoin is currently altcoin trading.

So... You really want to try and kill it?

I don't think you understand what this thread is about.  The vast majority of altcoins do not have IPO.  People started to release proof of stake coins using the lie that IPO is necessary to run the proof of stake model such as NXT, Ethereum, etc.  This is false, read the 3rd paragraph in the original post of this thread.

Next, the developers tend to try and hide all the code and not make anything open source for these IPO coins.  After enough community outrage, some release it, others will resist and eventually navigate cryptocurrency to a closed source model.  This is another huge negative of the IPO scheme that I didn't even mention in the original post.  Bitcoin is supposed to be an open source model.

If you don't start banning these clowns from trying to sell their IPO scams on the website, while trying to profit off something that's supposed to be open source, eventually you will have Bank of America itself trying to sell you their own IPO scam on the forum a year from now.  Nobody wins except scammers and a handful of random developers, 99.99% loses.

You are correct, i understand not much beyond knowing a lot about markets. Know very little about nxt or any of them. Most are comically awful though. They just remind me of pokemon cards or beanie babies for nerds or a bunch of other bizarre manifestations of subcultures. If someone loses their life savings on tittiecoin i doubt they had much to risk.

This seemed to truly get out if hand with coin.io and simplification of cloning, maybe i am wrong on that but if so it is like a month old. There are only so many suckers in the pond so it will not last.

As for B of A they will do something like that, probably they will end up hiring serial devs to do it. Wall street will eat the space or the space will become wall street and you wont stop that. Human nature still.

Anyway i am naive and i get your collective outrage at the whole thing. But it is a really useful circus tent for learning the concepts for those of us not dumb enough to give money to the carnies.

[bandjhughes]

No...allow a free market its freedom.  

Having said that I will not invest in an IPO because I'm too afraid of being scammed.  Plus I favor a fair (i.e., non-premined) start.

[extee]

to me it's PoW coins which should be banned. as miners are not needed anymore (since 100% PoS was made reality in Nxt) and with the polarizing of the miners market it is not even a fair model of distribution . also PoW mining is a threat to our environment (with estimated carbon footprint of Bitcoin alone likely to be 3x worlds total if it was to become the worlds currency).
miners now are just some sort of middle men between developers and investors and a detrimental category.
i'd rather see PoS developers distributing the coins for free (like in the "interested" threads lol) or see wallets automatically charged with some algorythm (proofofuniquewallet) rather distribute them to miners which have become an exclusive club which requires a minimum 1000$ rig ticket (unless you want to mine at a loss).
in bitcoin PoW miners were/are NEEDED to secure the network/carry out transactions, that's primarily why they were introduced in the system. and the coins were their reward for doing so.
but now with 100% PoS  miners are simply surplus to requirements...and as any redundant category they start with their strikes and protests (threads like this one ).
distributing coins to developers/investors makes more sense to me than distributing them to miners.
ProoFofinvesting > ProofofMining ( i refuse to call sitting on your ass watching rigs mine "work" lol)...and i see investing in technology and developers a more valuable job than mining.
for sure i prefer getting the coins directly from the developer than buying them from miners while they are being pumped&dumped on an exchange

an Ipo can actually be more democratic and inclusive if it allows even for tiny investments (and that tiny investment is better placed in an IPO rather than in mining where with a tiny investment actually means a loss)

also you have to keep in mind when Bitcoin and first altcoins were created there was no mining market so the developers themselves were able to mine a large amount and effectively have a large stake in their own creation. (rumours say satoshi was able to mine 950k of btcs....)
this would not be possible today...as the developers would be gazumped on release by multititudes of miners who would get all the coins and the profits (and for what? burning electricity and watching some fans spin..)....

if ethereum was just to do a PoW without any premine/ipo.....considering all the attention it received and all the miners ready to pounce on it.....the developers would be left with hardly anything to bring the project forward....and probably most of the trolls that jump in every IPO screaming "scam " would end up having bigger amounts than the developers lol.
r0ach with more etheriums than Vitalik if it was 100% PoW....yeah sure that would be fair lol.

edit:
having said this I feel there should be a code of practice for IPOs here. one cannot just put an IPO up without any evidence of a product.  first there needs to be some verified beta before it can be listed here or something. but then again if people want to invest in thin air you cannot stop them...
in this regard i think ethereum did well to postpone the IPO and first have a proof-of-concept client for download. and emunie too is allowing people to try the open beta before the IPO.
this should be as standard imo.

[lexicon]

If you don't like IPO's don't get involved.

Why try to stop that do want to invest just because you don't want to?

And most of you voting are doing this?


What is wrong with this picture guys?

[jballs]

If you don't like IPO's don't get involved.

Why try to stop that do want to invest just because you don't want to?

And most of you voting are doing this?


What is wrong with this picture guys?

Minor point but if you all keep calling them IPO's long enough the SEC will be shutting them down for you.

Also surprised such a crypto-anarcho-libertarian crowd is pretty well split down the middle on....more governance.

[r0ach]

No...allow a free market its freedom.  

Oh please, you're talking to someone that helped work on Ron Paul coin, they quoted what I wrote on the evening news, I know what a free market is.  There are a lot of angles to this, but this is a privately owned website created for an open source, software platform called Bitcoin.  This isn't a stock exchange or government institution.  They have extended site functionality to support forks of that open source software, referred to as "altcoins", but an IPO is dramatically different content.

I've already covered how the self proclaimed, "second generation", proof of stake cryptocurrencies do not actually need IPOs to function.  Things like the Ethereum IPO exist solely to enrich the currency issuer.  Bitcoin was not designed from the ground up solely to enrich the creator.  It was designed as an open source, software solution to reign in the power of currency issuers.  The IPO scamsters are also attempting to move towards closed source as well.  There is a clear conflict of interest.

It's the equivalent of some guy burning copies of Linux and trying to sell it on the street corner.  Sure, he can do whatever the hell he wants, but you don't have to allow him to post his ads for the discs on your privately owned, open source, Linux website.  That's what a "free market" is.

What's next?  Everyone will start charging $20 to download the wallet for their new crap coin?  We will start difficulty at 0.00000, but you have to pay money to download the wallet!  I don't care if they altered some, or most of the code, they're still trying to make money off an open source software project, while also trying to convert to closed source at the same time.  If this isn't a conflict of interest, I don't know what is.

[Wekkel]

Have you researched every ipo on this forum and all of them were scams?

Read the third paragraph in the original post again.  There is no demonstrable reason for the IPO method of distribution to exist.  Proof of stake does not require IPO ever.

We're now at 6 votes for banning, and 9 against, with not a single reply demonstrating why an IPO is necessary instead of the method outlined in my original post.  This forum has far more criminal fraudsters than I imagined.

A classic Krugman approach.

1. define a problem
2. conceive the arguments of the opponent yourself
3. smash those arguments
4. declare yourself winner

I voted no. Regardless of what OP and I think, people can and should think for themselves. They should be able to choose the coin they like or create their own. If coins are scams, better learn fast.

OP is somehow trying to ban the sun (sunlight is free, just as open source software).

[jballs]

No...allow a free market its freedom.  

I've already covered how the self proclaimed, "second generation", proof of stake cryptocurrencies do not actually need IPOs to function.  Things like the Ethereum IPO exist solely to enrich the currency issuer.  Bitcoin was not designed from the ground up solely to enrich the creator.  It was designed as an open source, software solution to reign in the power of currency issuers.  The IPO scamsters are also attempting to move towards closed source as well.  There is a clear conflict of interest.

Ooooh. I get it now, those IPO's. I thought that was just shorthand for all the new issues, you're talking about the whole other system.

Well point stands I learn way faster from the arguments and factions than I would without them. That said I'll bow out and read along now that I know what I don't know. Thanks.

[coinrevo]

many thanks for the thread. important question. is there a list of IPO's / fundraisers somewhere?

I would argue: large IPOs (1M$+) should be not allowed, in the sense that people should speak out against them and told that these are darkpatterns which are not wanted. so there is a continuum of outright banning, restricting and just campaigning against them.

if somebody wants to launch a CorporateCoin or eGold 2.0, do that outside the community. nobody wants it. bitcoin was designed precisely to avoid problems with eGold. a corporation can be attacked in various ways, or use its influence in various ways.

on the other hand problem is how to define "IPO"? somebody asking to be paid - is that an IPO? do you want to restrict all BTC flows and how? then you get into the question of potential admin corruption, i.e. "ban this person asking for money, and i'll pay you x BTC." another example is link to a Kickstarter. actually with BTC assurance contracts we can have a much better version of kickstarter.

my sugggestion: somebody opens up a thread and discusses some guidelines. then anyone can link to those guidelines, the next time somebody asks for a million bucks, he will be shown a flag: this is a darkpattern, established by discussion in this thread.

i.e. you want to raise 30 M$ without putting in a dime in yourself? => that is not a good idea.

some dark patterns:

* money beyond covering reasonable expenses (300k$ p.a. is highend)
* no skin in the game
* a lot of marketing based on non facts
* referencing law of the country. if you're raising in BTC, there is no law covering this, unless you have proof, i.e. legal docs to back up your claims

[r0ach]

A classic Krugman approach.

1. define a problem
2. conceive the arguments of the opponent yourself
3. smash those arguments
4. declare yourself winner

That's a real knee slapper.  Trying to perform guilt by association comparing me to a racial supremacist, Jewish man shilling for central bankers in his cult.

Can you address the multiple conflicts of interest outlined in my previous post above yours.  The progression of these activities I talked about will eventually lead to such a divergence in site content from the original purpose of the website, that people advertising plastic lawn chairs for sale will be more on topic.

[Wekkel]

A classic Krugman approach.

1. define a problem
2. conceive the arguments of the opponent yourself
3. smash those arguments
4. declare yourself winner

That's a real knee slapper.  Trying to perform guilt by association comparing me to a racial supremacist, Jewish man shilling for central bankers in his cult.

Can you address the multiple conflicts of interest outlined in my previous post above yours.  The progression of these activities I talked about will eventually lead to such a divergence in site content from the original purpose of the website, that people advertising plastic lawn chairs for sale will be more on topic.

This is not a democracy: the site owners can ban whatever they want. You have read my opinion, no more.

[smooth]

On one hand developers do need money to make services and such to build a coin up

Nobody needs to "build a coin up" that is exactly the point. You have essentially defined a pump-and-dump scheme right there.

But it doesn't need to be banned. People just need to stop falling for it. When there is no demand the game is up.