ICOs: The Cancer of the Digital Currency Industry

[Homeless_Victim]

I believe that there are good startups that came to the market with good intentions

I think if they wanted to do things right they would have started their coins like the early altcoins did. That would have kept things honest.

Instead we had criminal venture capital firms who wanted to game the system with their ICOs and now we're seeing the results of their criminality.

[Homeless_Victim]

"...ICOs had their beginnings back in 2013, but their popularity as a new “crowdfunding” type scheme to raise capital did not take off until 2017, when over $7 billion was raised. Venture capital firms were wondering what had hit them.

The primary issue with these fundraisings is that they are unregulated, and their “tokens” have been likened to “securities” by the regulatory establishment, their way of combating the rampant fraud within this space. The SEC and others have come down hard with hefty fines, court filings, and incarcerations. The uncertainty of the situation has slowed momentum, too..."

https://www.leaprate.com/experts/tom-cleveland/the-anatomy-of-an-initial-coin-offering-ico-fraud/

[Renaldi blackspadeteam]

of course, I think there are organizations or groups that are tasked with suppressing crypto prices at certain times, since January the price of other bitcoin and crypto has always dropped from month to month, but I'm sure there will be a large bullrun.

[NaXxow]

scamcoins surely affect greatly the crypto community. there is no good effect of a bad scheme, there will never be. Crypto community should be aware that there is no easy money, everything should be in a legal and legit process. Do not believe in a good to be true schemes.

[automail]

Yes. I believe that scam ICO's are the reason why we are experiencing the bear market. I mean it should not be this worst if not for those scam ICO's. What's happening is that they are ruining the reputation of cryptto currency. Not all of the investors understand that ICO is an independent company that offers services. They were thinking that ICO is the crypto currency  itself. It results to people bad mouthing crypto because of their experience on ICO's. Scams are cancer!

[sabine80]

icos have also brought something good. through them many people have found their way to crypto and the reputation of crypto has greatly increased. that would not have happened without the last ico hype.

[Barbarian]

While there is no doubt that icos are responsible for the mistrust that the general population has in cryptocurrencies, things will not be so bad if people learned their lesson and stopped investing in those projects, you just need to take a look at the scam accusation section of this forum and you will see many users exposing icos every day that are fake.

[oppo070]

The recent drops in the digital currency prices have been unparalleled in the amount of market capitalization dollars lost. In the past there has been some examples of large drops in Bitcoin and Altcoin prices, but what’s happened over the last 10 days cannot be an accident or attributed to the Bitcoin Cash hard fork. There are certainly more sinister forces at work...

https://cointrader21.wordpress.com/2018/11/25/icos-the-cancer-of-the-digital-currency-industry/

I do not really believe that creation too many altcoins is destroying the entire cryptocurrency market. On the other hand, they really opens up opportunity to introduce new technology in the market that will be used by many.

[FreeAirdrops]

Well if an ICO was a scam I'm sure they'd probably cash out. So it's like investors who like crypto give to people who don't care about crypto so it drains the market.

[ityandsyn]

The recent drops in the digital currency prices have been unparalleled in the amount of market capitalization dollars lost. In the past there has been some examples of large drops in Bitcoin and Altcoin prices, but what’s happened over the last 10 days cannot be an accident or attributed to the Bitcoin Cash hard fork. There are certainly more sinister forces at work...

https://cointrader21.wordpress.com/2018/11/25/icos-the-cancer-of-the-digital-currency-industry/

       You've been talking in general which is not fair to the legit ICO which indeed helping cryptocurrencies to survive this bearish market so I strongly disagree on your thought , let's be specific to avoid misleading the other member .
       anyway whatever thought is always been an arguments to others .

[Homeless_Victim]

Well if an ICO was a scam I'm sure they'd probably cash out. So it's like investors who like crypto give to people who don't care about crypto so it drains the market.

I think they've been cashing out all along.

[Jamesdila1]

not all. there are some good ICOs too. but i think all the ICOs must be regulated. then its healthy thing for crypto community and blockchain technology. hope that will happen in 2019

[Homeless_Victim]

not all. there are some good ICOs too. but i think all the ICOs must be regulated. then its healthy thing for crypto community and blockchain technology. hope that will happen in 2019

I'd like to see the venture capitalists give all their ICO gains to homeless charities and food banks around the US.

[isen]

Personally, I think that just due to ICO, many projects have developed to the level that we can observe now. Of course, the system is not perfect and needs to be improved, but its merits cannot be minimized.

[zabir.brutov]

ICOs have disappointed everybody in 2018 for several reasons. First of all almost no ICO can even collect its soft cap. Secondly, the market is full of scam projects that are trying to trick the investors. Hope things will change.

[gowobonyok]

no, precisely if there is an ico with a better concept it can lift the altcoin that is their platform. I know that you suspect that participants who get a reward and do a dump are very influential on the altcoin market right? that's not entirely true. ico can greatly help the future of the coin that is their platform.

[0t3p0t]

O-o-o-kay.  Did you write that article and want to point people to it, or was there something else you wanted to say about it?  It's not a very in-depth piece of writing; it's basically calling ICOs scams without providing a real argument for why people should think that.

Not that I completely disagree with it, but I've got my reason for thinking so and if I just wrote "ICOs suck; they're killing the crypto industry" it wouldn't be worth much as a published blog article.  Know what I mean?  Want to spark some sort of discussion about this?

I wonder if we'll ever know how many individual investors lost money on the ICOs. I would think the number has to be in the hundreds of thousands, if not a few million.

Investors in the last year lost not even millions, but tens of millions of dollars, investing in ICO projects. However, this does not mean that this activity is generally detrimental to cryptocurrency. Since there are a lot of fraudulent projects in it, which is a crime, states should have started regulating this type of activity a long time ago in order to protect the rights of investors.

I never bought an ICO, but I knew early on that they were a problem. I remember seeing an interview with Andreas Antonopoulos in the summer of 2016 and he warned people to not invest in them. He said they were basically scams, I believed that then and I believe it now.

Study Concludes 80 Percent of ICOs in 2017 Were “Scams”
https://ethereumworldnews.com/ico-80-percent-scams-2017-2018/

Yeah you are right mate some ICO's are scam but not all of them there are still legit ICO's out there that may give investors more gains. It is like we mostly hear projects launching ICO's but rarely see successful and legit ones in this industry. But then, it is akways a matter of choice. Though I am not an investor but still can be a victim of these scammy ICO's since I am a bounty hunter but as I said doing our own due diligence will make sense and we should always know the risk and consequences we are getting into.

[Femhab]

One of the causes of ETH losing so much value to be accounted to the 2017 ICOs, over 170k ETH were dumped by ICO anchors on ETH market because most of the project that conducts ICO uses ETH platform. The cancer of digital currency is however not only ICOs but also the governments trying hard to FUD the whole system.

[Homeless_Victim]

One of the causes of ETH losing so much value to be accounted to the 2017 ICOs, over 170k ETH were dumped by ICO anchors on ETH market because most of the project that conducts ICO uses ETH platform. The cancer of digital currency is however not only ICOs but also the governments trying hard to FUD the whole system.

I agree with your points about ETH. But what needs to be reported on far more is how the venture capital firms backed the ICOs and ultimately the prices crashing is their fault.

[m0Ray]

Of course you have a strange perception. Think about it, ICO is made to receive the new projects. Isn't that awesome? This is a new competition in the field.