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Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

Every ICO I hear about just sounds like a scam. Maybe I don't understand it, but I have yet to see a case where as an investor I thought "that sounds like a good investment!".

Can someone describe a scenario where an ICO is a win for the investor?

For example, at least with stocks, I get a share of ownership in return for my money. So as the value of the company goes up, the value of my share goes it. It's based on tangible ownership of a real thing. But with a crypto coin, what is the value tied to? Is it really just the perceived value of the underlying asset? And what happens when the company shuts down? They sell all the assets, the real shareholders take all the money, but what happens to all the coin holders?

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> with a crypto coin, what is the value tied to?

In the specific case of ethereum ERC20 tokens [1], it depends on how the mechanism design uses the token, there's no general answer. I can give 3 specific examples.

MKR stablecoin (https://github.com/makerdao/docs/blob/master/Dai.md): users of the collateralized debt positions system pay fees for using the service (because they want to take margin long positions, or because they want to issue some stablecoins), those fees go to MKR holders (the mechanism for this has changed over time, but it could be through dividends, or buy-and-burn). In return MKR holders provide a service by having MKR be one "line of defence" in undercollatiralization scenarios (new MKR is minted and auctioned).

REP (http://blog.augur.net/for-reporters-a-guide-to-rep-tokens/) - users of Augur's prediction markets pay fees to REP holders, who in return participate as reporters in the prediction market.

Decentralized exchanges (0x and Kyber Network are some that have recently ICO'd) - generally users of the exchanges (who consumer services like liquidity, order routing and matching) pay fees to the token holders, somehow. I'm less familiar with these.

The fact that users pay fees is enforced by smart contracts. There is also some thoughts on a general framework for valuing these tokens here http://vitalik.ca/general/2017/10/17/moe.html.

> And what happens when the company shuts down

In a "proper" decentralized application there's no centralized company that can unilaterally decide to "shut things down". All the projects I mentioned above aim to in the long run behave like this.

Notes

[1] of course, not all ICOs are of ethereum ERC20 tokens, eg recent ones are EOS, Tezos, arguably Polkadot. But I am much less able to talk about how the token economics of those tokens.

The best use-case for a crypto coin is as a share of an underlying economy. Take ethereum for example, their underlying asset ETH is used to power computation on the network. So when the network first launches you get to purchase a share of the ethereum economy for relatively cheap since the risk of failure is high. Your expectation is that once the network of apps and users is built up, that economy will grow and so will the value of your share of it. The value proposition in an ICO is that the potential upside of your investment can reasonably be 100x.

I don't recall exactly but I think ether tokens sold for around 30 cents per coin which is about a 1000x return at current prices. So for the extra risk of having zero leverage in determining how the company operates, and no ability to recover assets if things fail, you hope for a much greater return than you get through traditional investments.

The problem with the recent ICO wave is that the value proposition has gone completely out of whack. Instead of the underlying economy starting off at a $2M market cap and thus having huge room to grow, they're starting off at $20M or even $200+M with very little room to grow outside of the increase due to massive bubble valuations.

> So for the extra risk of having zero leverage in determining how the company operates, and no ability to recover assets if things fail, you hope for a much greater return than you get through traditional investments.

This was the best explanation yet, thank you!

It almost sounds like gambling, in that I have no control in the outcome nor any way to recoup assets, expect that I can't even calculate the odds of my return on an ICO. :)

I guess my question is, what is the end game? Doesn't someone end up at the bottom of the pyramid so to speak, stuck holding the bag with the whole thing goes spiraling down?

>I guess my question is, what is the end game? Doesn't someone end up at the bottom of the pyramid so to speak

I think there's a chance a handful of blockchain projects will have enough utility to be sustainable long term, but almost certainly not at the valuations that are common currently. But the vast majority of them have zero long term value. The way I see it crypto is winner-take-most. There's room for one "currency" that can potentially have a Trillion+ market cap, followed by a couple of niche utility projects with maybe around 100M market cap at best, and the rest are utterly worthless.

"The best use-case for a crypto coin is as a share of an underlying economy"

There is no such thing as a 'share' of that economy.

"So when the network first launches you get to purchase a share of the ethereum economy for relatively cheap"

No - you're not purchasing anything but a number.

"The problem with the recent ICO wave is that the value proposition "

There is no fundamental value proposition with coins - that's the problem. There is absolutely no way to value them. They are just worth what some folks in the crowd think and that is the beginning and end of it.

"very little room to grow outside of the increase due to massive bubble valuations."

?? What is a 'bubble valuation' - there would have to be a 'normal valuation' to compare it to. There is no normal valuation for any crypto. They are just 'numbers that you buy'. It's digital monopoly money with no face value. Why not $1 Billion USD for a BTC? Why not $10 dollars? There's no rhyme or reason for the prices to be what they are at any given time. Currently it's just a function of how many people are finding out about it, i.e. correlated with Google Trends.

>There is no such thing as a 'share' of that economy.

If inflation is limited or even capped, and the usage of the network requires tokens, then yes, holding tokens is trivially a share of the economy.

I see what you mean by that, and it's not an unreasonable position, that said, it's really hard to make the assertion that it's a 'share' in the economy.

Why? Because A) we don't know there will be a fixed amount of currency - Kik owns 90% of the Kin, they could dump on the market at any time. And B) There's no reason that people are going to be forced to use a specific currency in most places. If there are people playing speculative games with a currency, well, people will just use another one.

But it's fair to say that it's possible to 'gain' from an economy by buying into the currency as long as it meets certain conditions.

There are some speculations about ICOs founding things that are needed but are not founded now - like Open Protocols and Open Source software working with them. It might not be a good mechanism for extracting the value - but the others are also not very efficient.

https://medium.com/@zby/the-case-for-icos-bee2c223ec71

In other words, the kickstarter donation model, with kickstarter the company removed from the equation. Makes sense, for certain use cases, but those use cases are not investments, in exactly the same way as kickstarter donations are not investments.

they probably are all scams but people still make money on them and thats why they are popular

You fail to understand the big picture so let me help you (and perhaps @jedberg) out a bit.

Many yes, but not all, are scams and in fact the concept of an ICO is just as significant as cryptocurrency itself (though cryptocurrency a required predecessor).

ICOs (tokens) are to IPOs (stocks) what cryptocurrency is to fiat currency.

Just as banks will fight and make a fuss about cryptocurrency, stock exchanges (and banks again) will make a fuss about ICOs.

Why? It's because ICOs, like cryptocurrency - are decentralized & blockchain powered and as such require no regulation or centralized authority to give them legitimacy. The blockchain, an immutable append-only log of transactions gives them legitimacy.

In other words, crypto currency and ICOs 'cut out the middlemen' - and the middlemen don't like it (hence they will try to give ICOs negative press; but of course the pyramid schemers and scam artists don't help the matter either).

Yet banks and exchanges are perhaps the lesser of worries; it is at the end of the day big brother who is most concerned because this entire crypto/blockchain movement has the potential to render their system of control - which is based on controlling and imposing rules on capital (something very difficult to do with the aforementioned crypto tech) - totally ineffective in the future.

So yes, just as in the early days of the internet there were those who used it to share & publish scams or porn - there are some ICOs or users of cryptocurrency engaged in scams or questionable activity. But just because you can share porn on the internet does not mean it isn't going to be a critical business technology one day in the near future.

In the meantime, expect big brother and its friends in media to be-little and all out attack the tech and the people who use it (via more laws & regulation, censorship and ultimately intimidation & force) until it inevitably becomes apart of everyday business.

That explains the philosophical reasons, but just like cryptocurrency is weak compared to fiat currency, ICOs still sound even weaker than stocks.

It's nice that there is no regulation, but in the case of both fiat currency and stock, it is the regulation that gives it value, because they are backed by a system of laws and an army to protect those laws.

Like with stocks, they are already somewhat subject to the psychological whims of the shareholders, but what keeps most stock prices fairly stable is the fact that everyone who holds it knows that the worst case scenario is that the underlying company is liquidated and everyone gets some money back.

With a crypto coin, if the masses just decide that it isn't worth anything anymore, then it just isn't worth anything anymore. It has no backing in reality as far as I can tell.

> With a crypto coin, if the masses just decide that it isn't worth anything anymore, then it just isn't worth anything anymore.

Note that this is true of every currency, not just cryptocurrency.

> "It's nice that there is no regulation, but in the case of both fiat currency and stock, it is the regulation that gives it value, because they are backed by a system of laws and an army to protect those laws."

Sure, but ultimately the value is not for you or me or the government to decide necessarily - it is a collective decision by the market. If the market eventually comes to a consesus that this whole idea of large scale government is a failed concept and that it only results in monopolies, wars, and extreme inequalities - then people can choose to abandon that system in favor of something they might prefer and see a brigther future for; something that is decentralized without any central authority perhaps.

Personally, I would rather invest in companies that don't have to pay enormous legal fees and jump through umpteen regulations designed to benefit a failed system - I'd rather my capital flow away from violent 'armies' as you say and directly into the hands of those implementing new ideas on the front-line of innovation.

Just so happens I can do just that, just send me your BTC address. And if you'd like to give me a return, you need only a BTC address of mine - there we just transacted a stock using no more than two Bitcoin addresses. See the power here? If even not for philosophical reasons, people are going to choose this method for trading securities (or whatever you want to call them) because it is easier. You can't reverse that; the cat is already out of the bag so to speak.

> "With a crypto coin, if the masses just decide that it isn't worth anything anymore, then it just isn't worth anything anymore. It has no backing in reality as far as I can tell."

That is a natural course of any failed business. Try not to invest in the ones that you feel people may one day decide isn't worth anything anymore and you'll be fine.

We don't need the government to hand-hold us in our day to day lives; certainly not in what we eat, consume, read, or invest (or not invest) in.

"ICOs (tokens) are to IPOs (stocks) what cryptocurrency is to fiat currency."

No - absolutely not.

An IPO is the sale of shares in a company. It comes with a whole set of legal rights - most importantly, legal rights to the assets of the company.

Crypto-currencies are just another form of arbitrary currency that have different parameters - and by the way - crypto currencies are definitely 'fiat' currencies (i.e. they have value because they are declared to have value and that's it) - a non-fiat currency would be backed by an asset like Gold or property. Crypto-currencies imply zero rights to assets of the company, which is a pretty big deal.

Most currencies in the world are in fact 'backed' by something. USD are backed by TBills and crap property. The Euro is backed by 'good assets' generally.

"In other words, crypto currency and ICOs 'cut out the middlemen'"

No - definitely not. ICOs are way to sell NOTHING to people for actual money. 'Cutting out the middle man' in an IPO would be akin to skipping brokerages or something of the like - i.e. direct sales to consumers. With ICO's - coin owners get nothing in return, i.e. no rights to assets or future profits.

"there are some ICOs or users of cryptocurrency engaged in scams or questionable activity"

Can anyone name any ICO's wherein the coins have gone on to support a healthy economy for which that currency was supposed to support?

Because the Kin (i.e. Kik) coins are down to 1/5th their original valuation - they are not being used for anything in the economy - and Kik owns enough Kin to devalue the current economy by over 90%, meaning the current Kins are worth about 1/10th of their value.

"You fail to understand the big picture so let me help you (and perhaps @jedberg) out a bit."

No - I'm sorry but you fail to understand. So many people on here who support BTC have no financial or economic understanding of what it is - they are blinded by the admittedly very cool technological aspects and the 'utopian promises'.

The notion of a 'decentralized currency' is really cool, but it's not likely to happen for a variety of reasons. Basically all ICOs are scams. Most coins will die soon - BTC will be around for a while yet.

> "set of legal rights to assets" ... "zero rights to assets"

Who cares who gives you rights to the assets? If I invest in a company, I've already decided to bet on them. If they choose to screw me over - fine, I will no longer invest in them - and neither should anyone else.

Why do you want to involve the government to enforce 'your right' over someone else - why don't you take responsbility for your own failed investment?

Let the company set the terms, including for insolvency scenarios, and take the risk knowing that they may or may not be able to fulfil them but it's up to you to give them that chance.

When I make an investment, I am willing to trust the business issuing the share/token 100% to do the right thing. If the business is run by left-nut SJWs drinking soy latte's all day then I'm gunna run away or pull my funds out ASAP cause these are the types who will most likely fail or compromise when big brother comes along and demands to undermine the business by installing a backdoor for which to expose all of said business' customer data.

> "would be akin to skipping brokerages or something of the like - i.e. direct sales to consumers."

Exactly.

> "blinded by the admittedly very cool technological aspects and the 'utopian promises'."

It's not a utopia - it's a vision for the future unfolding, 'happening right now' , for a variety of reasons. And yeah, at $7.5k per coin today I agree it's going to be around for a while yet.

> "With ICO's - coin owners get nothing in return, i.e. no rights to assets or future profits."

That is, for the scams - yes. But same line of thinking as I described above - stop assuming the government can enforce anything and instead trust the company to follow through on what it has promised you in the initial offering. If they say they will issue you a dividend in proportion to your total number of tokens - you and every other token holder should hold them accountable to do that (the blockchain and open bookkeeping btw can make it even easier to audit them in this regard)

> "Basically all ICOs are scams"

Let's agree to disagree on that one - but full disclosure, other than ETH (later sold for ETC after the fork), I have never invested in a hyped up ICO myself. But when and if I do, I certainly don't want big brother 'enforcing' anything with regards to the transaction or the business issuing the token.

You need 'legal rights' because it's (almost) the only way to enforce agreements.

Suppose you use BTC to buy something, and someone ripped you off. Do you get a gun, and 'take care of your own business'?

Do you grasp that 'the law' and 'the government' is there to manage the social contract that we have in place?

Commercial law is there to help us sort out agreements we make with one another.

Crypto-currencies have very limited ability to do that.

Also - owning a 'coin' is owning an abstract number that someone made up, which does not give it a whole lot of value.

Owning a 'share' implies ownership in the company ---> The company's money in their bank account, their real-estate etc. - it belongs to you. That's a really big deal - someone giving you their cash, and their future earnings, the IP, in return for 'money now'.

"It's not a utopia - it's a vision for the future unfolding, 'happening right now'"

No it's not. Nobody is using coins for any kind of commerce, and ICOs are turning out to be scams so they will disappear fast. BTC is just a pyramid scheme. It will be 'around for a while' because more people will find out about the scheme and 'want in'. Eventually it will lose steam. My bet is that BTC crashes when the first economic crash happens in the West - people will need to liquidate their BTC and prices will fall - as soon as their is legit downward price pressure on BTC it could go to zero pretty quickly.

You really wasted your breath here

You're not the only one who reads HN, but thx for the input - I'll try to avoid replying to you in the future.

I am attempting to be constructive here and not insulting. We fundamentally agree, and your response just like a condescending adderal fueled tirade.

Duly noted; it was certainly a late night tirade - no adderal but lot's of carbs & sugar - I apologize for coming across as condescending.

Hashgraph seems a promising alternative: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/what-is-hashgraph

http://www.swirlds.com/whitepapers/

https://hashgraph.com/

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