Using Stellar for ICOs | Hacker News Reader

Using Stellar for ICOs

stellar.org

41 pointswestoque19 comments

Ever since Stellar threw away their legacy (Ripple) code base, I've actually paid attention to what they're up to. I believe they have the best tech for this ICO movement. FTA: "Stellar is an excellent choice for any ICO that does not require Turing-complete smart contracts and can benefit from immediate creation of a secondary market." -> IMO this is 95% of the Ethereum ICO use cases.

Unfortunately, the developer mind share isn't there, and the price of their coin makes it prohibitively hard to raise money. If you want to raise $100M ICO on Ethereum you need .3% of the market cap. With Stellar, you'd need 30%.

I haven't followed Stellar closely, but shouldn't it allow you to buy an ICO directly with, say, USD instead of having to detour through XLM? Of course, this would probably reduce the "sure, I'll spend some of my Internet play money on some Internet play stock" effect.

Yeah it does, you just have to have USD "tokens" on the network (ie, an ico whose tokens are backed by dollars). Then you can exchange directly through the built in decentralized exchange.

First organization to use Stellar for ICO:

https://mobius.network

I just read that page and I have no clue what Mobius is actually doing.

The same for me. Apparently they want to "create simple protocols that introduce new standards for cross-blockchain login, payment, governance, and oracles.".

Not sure what that even means. People will shower them with money though I am sure.

After reading their whitepaper it seems they want to become Stripe for blockchain.

So they will create JSON API as an abstraction on top of all blockchains.

And you will be able to use this single API to do operations on various blockchains.

Ok, but why does this require an ICO? Do you have to figure out some way to acquire Mobius tokens before you can use their API? Because that would kind of defeat the point, wouldn't it?

A fool and his money ... you know the rest

Isn't the ICO a fundraising structure for the company? It has nothing to do with their product (which is the API/integration platform).

But the way ICOs work is you offer a token that people pay you for. If your token doesn't actually have any purpose whatsoever, then there's no reason for anyone to buy it.

Y'all are both right. Some tokens are (theoretically) required to use the app and some tokens will (theoretically) pay dividends like stock shares.

Tokens are more than that. They are not only fuel for apps (see: Ether), and "stock shares" that generate dividends (see the "stock split" of Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin; see also Digital Developers Fund, Metal, and Etherroll, which has already PAID dividends to token-holders), tokens are also mechanisms for self-governance within an organization, required as a proof-of-stake to vote for the decisions the business is going to take (see DistrictOx0. Put more simply, tokens are a new asset class with the best of the old asset classes plus new, upgraded features from the new internet of blockchains.

For being on the y-combinator board some of y'all sure are slow seeing the gravity of the disruption.

They slapped a bunch of buzzwords on a page and asked people to give them money for nothing. Like every other ico.

Exactly. I too have no clue. I also read the whitepaper but doesn't go into detail.

I just posted mobius here for reference.

ICOs are just straight up ponzi schemes or pump and dump scams. The list of exceptions is very, very short.

Stellar is centralized, so any tokens issued on it are at risk of one day being frozen through court/regulatory order.

Ethereum has the critical mass of supporting infrastructure (all the wallets and services that are compatible with ERC20 tokens) and liquidity to be the best choice for token sales.

Stellar is not centralized. Anyone can spin up a node. Any node can be a validator node.

You may be confusing Stellar's technology with Ripple's -- Ripple is definitely centralized.

It's a web of trust with its federation servers. Reliance on large trusted third parties meets my definition of centralized. The economic majority will be highly vulnerable to regulatory pressure, due to trust collation. That regulated exchanges are part of the protocol makes the likelihood that the economic centre will successfully resist regulatory pressure even less likely.

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