Ethereum IPO reboot coming, time to get nervous about the future of crypto

[r0ach]

First thing you notice when looking at the Ethereum website now, is that the team has ballooned to the size of a small town.  I was expecting to see 2-8 guys working on this thing max.  When you're dealing with this massive number of people, it's obviously no longer an open source p2p currency project, but an actual corporation looking to make mega bucks.  Yes, I understand the product may have some innovations (which Counterparty, NXT, and others are also doing similar things), but this is kind of an insult to the Satoshi legacy turning his original invention into a giant, corporate money grab.

I'm not really sure what their current funding plan is, but the previous one seemed to involve an IPO for enormous, windfall profits, combined with an enormous developer share to go along with that.  They probably would have made hundreds of thousands of dollars, while also controlling something like 10-25% of the equity/money supply as posted in the following thread:

http://forum.ethereum.org/discussion/11/founders-and-issuance

While it is true that their share would be continuously diluted, this is of course true of everyone else using the system as well. Using their own chart as a guide, after 5 years the founders would hold 6.25% from their reward, but I am assuming that these founders will probably, either in whole or in part, make up the board of the Ethereum foundation responsible for an additional 6.25%. Add to that whatever portion they get from their contribution to the initial fundraiser and whatever they are able to mine in that time and I would bet you can add another 10% or so. Ostensibly, this would give them control over upwards of 20-25% of the supply, either directly or indirectly

Now it seems like they're running into legal issues and may have to cancel IPO release for the United States.  All it takes is one look at Buterin to tell the guy was too young to know what the hell he was getting into.  He could have kept this thing with 2-8 people, issued themselves reasonable, time released equity shares, as proof of concept for how their invention is supposed to work, and just be done with it.  Now this thing is an out of control bus headed straight into the SEC + the front page of Hazaard's scam warning section.

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[lnternet]

Interesting take, thank you.

[BitOnyx]

You can always issue at different country. With inter nationality and flexibility of altcoins it is easy to work and execute projects from all over the world. Not to mention, base on name, this project is already multicultural so I guess it shouldn't be a problem. State regulations are problem that most of initiatives encounter at some point. And to be honest, especially when it comes to common law country like USA, it is best to just stay away.

[JakeThePanda]

Yeah, part of me says the size and scope of Etherium could spell trouble for crypto in the U.S., but another part of me says I better invest some money before this shit goes mainstream. 

[FoBoT]

why get small money from getting a handful of cryptophiles to pay for your idea, when you can get mega-millions from wall street venture capitalists to pay for your idea

seems legit

[mami]

 When you're dealing with this massive number of people, it's obviously no longer an open source p2p currency project, but an actual corporation looking to make mega bucks.

I watched the video and they said "Turing Complete" 3 times in seven minutes...

My intuition tells me that this is a corporate+geek pre-mine IPO scam...

Buterin knows his tech stuff, but he's in over his head: the blockchain is not that cool of an innovation.

This planned grand architecture will do roughly what GNU Hurd has done - NADA.

[r0ach]

Old post with now relevant topic

[bitdig]

here is my post from another topic:

Ethereum is out now.
I wanted to "invest", the idea is good... but now, after I learned more...

I just looked at their website they already "raised" about 3000 bitcoins... The odd thing is from what I learned is that there is no cap on number of coins and the future coins coming to the market just a percentage of "presale", which makes me think of a very strange strategy...
as many people invest the less value of each coin will have...

Their prelaunch is actually will dictate next years number of coins, so if there will be 1.000.000 coins mined next year or 300.000.000 coins is simply dictated by their prelaunch... And such a difference in number of next year(s) mined coins will have an impact on coins value for sure... Apparently, more people invest in ethereum the lower value of each coin will have... What the hell??

[Lordoftherigs]

Does anyone remember what was the ratio of ether to BTC in the failed IPO.

Now it is 2 000 ether for 1 BTC.

Just curious 

[jasemoney]

here is my post from another topic:

Ethereum is out now.
I wanted to "invest", the idea is good... but now, after I learned more...

I just looked at their website they already "raised" about 3000 bitcoins... The odd thing is from what I learned is that there is no cap on number of coins and the future coins coming to the market just a percentage of "presale", which makes me think of a very strange strategy...
as many people invest the less value of each coin will have...

Their prelaunch is actually will dictate next years number of coins, so if there will be 1.000.000 coins mined next year or 300.000.000 coins is simply dictated by their prelaunch... And such a difference in number of next year(s) mined coins will have an impact on coins value for sure... Apparently, more people invest in ethereum the lower value of each coin will have... What the hell??

It appears they settled on the fixed percentages a long time ago.  the difference in 1 million coins released an 100,000 coins mined the following year is the same as 1 coin released and .1 mined the following.  your saying the more people want to buy gold the lower its price? its interesting concept.  I dont see how more excitement and a large ipo could ever lead to a lower price in the future.  if it fails horribly the price would be low anyways

[schnötzel]

Does anyone remember what was the ratio of ether to BTC in the failed IPO.

Now it is 2 000 ether for 1 BTC.

Just curious 

10 000 (before jan. 18) and 1000 (jan25).

[idev]

Does anyone remember what was the ratio of ether to BTC in the failed IPO.

Now it is 2 000 ether for 1 BTC.

Just curious 

10 000 (before jan. 18) and 1000 (jan25).

Wow and now its only 2k per BTC, I wonder how they arrived at this new ratio.

[lumierre]

Does anyone remember what was the ratio of ether to BTC in the failed IPO.

Now it is 2 000 ether for 1 BTC.

Just curious 

10 000 (before jan. 18) and 1000 (jan25).

Wow and now its only 2k per BTC, I wonder how they arrived at this new ratio.

It is arbitrary and doesn't really affect anything in an economic sense.

I'm astonished people are worried about this.

[ShroomsKit_Disgrace]

Biggest scam in Human History.

[marcelus]

What a ridiculous post. Surely the more people working on it the more decentralised and open source it is?

[Nxtblg]

here is my post from another topic:

Ethereum is out now.
I wanted to "invest", the idea is good... but now, after I learned more...

I just looked at their website they already "raised" about 3000 bitcoins... The odd thing is from what I learned is that there is no cap on number of coins and the future coins coming to the market just a percentage of "presale", which makes me think of a very strange strategy...
as many people invest the less value of each coin will have...

Their prelaunch is actually will dictate next years number of coins, so if there will be 1.000.000 coins mined next year or 300.000.000 coins is simply dictated by their prelaunch... And such a difference in number of next year(s) mined coins will have an impact on coins value for sure... Apparently, more people invest in ethereum the lower value of each coin will have... What the hell??

It appears they settled on the fixed percentages a long time ago.  the difference in 1 million coins released an 100,000 coins mined the following year is the same as 1 coin released and .1 mined the following.  your saying the more people want to buy gold the lower its price? its interesting concept.  I dont see how more excitement and a large ipo could ever lead to a lower price in the future.  if it fails horribly the price would be low anyways

Well...he has his point. The trouble with a huge IPO or pre-sale is that it brings demand forward in time, from the future to the present.

It's similar to the paradox of contrarianism: investments are most risky, bear-market wise, when a large majority is bullish on it. Here's what resolves the paradox [a resolution that some might well peg as yet another intervention from Captain Obvious ]: people, preponderantly, are bullish about assets they've already bought. If almost everyone is bullish, and the aforementioned is the primary reason, who's left to buy? Where's the future demand that will put the price up?

In the case of Etherium, they've snagged a huge amount of demand already - leaving the question, who's left to support the price once it trades?

Case in point: Maidsafe.

[Spoetnik]

The trouble with a huge IPO or pre-sale is the fact it's being conducted in a lawless wild west free market saturated with scammers and thieves.

and if that is not the no. 1 concern for people then your all brain damaged big time.

this isn't the New York Stock exchange with regulators and laws and protection mechanisms in place..
instead we're in a scene we're your free to pull any kind of scam you want and it's even encouraged !
..just so long as *some of the participants make *some money then ANYTHING is fair game.

this is wrong .

and Crypto-Excuses™ and verbal gymnastics run rampant just as Hitler did stuffing millions of Jews in a gas chamber !
Nothing changes.. BAD behavior.. justified.

crowd fund and angel invest my ass IPO douche bags !

[cassius69]

Biggest scam in Human History.

in altcoin histroy maybe. far from biggest scam in human history though 

[Nxtblg]

I'm actually on the fence with this one. I was thinking about buying 200 ether for 0.1 BTC, but I've already girded myself to see it as a spend. Not an "investment," a spend - just like I'd spend $60-$70 for a gadget on eBay. The value I'd get from it, like a gadget, would come with what use I could squeeze out of it.

That's why I was thinking of throwing 0.1 BTC into the pre-sale. Just so I'd have 200 to play around with once the Etherium system is up and running next year.

But part of me says I should be buying more NFD...that's a price of being a dev. Investing for essentially reputational reasons.

[Zer0Sum]

this isn't the New York Stock exchange with regulators and laws and protection mechanisms in place..
instead we're in a scene we're your free to pull any kind of scam you want and it's even encouraged !
..just so long as *some of the participants make *some money then ANYTHING is fair game.

this is wrong .

Preach it, bro.

When I saw the "founders" list and actually know some people on it...
It is loaded with people that bought the "founder" title by investing $100K or whatever...
People with close to zero technical skills, but with $$$.

This is all designed to FLIP to greedy MOOKS... and make 1000%...
Selling unregistered securities in this manner to the public is TOTALLY ILLEGAL in North America.