Re:Avoiding being scammed in ICO “pump-and-dump” schemes
by notahacker on Monday August 28, 2017 @11:16AM
(#15117064)
The other key difference is that the 1990s startups were for the most part aiming to take advantage of a novel form of distribution rather than a novel means of fundraising.
Even though many of the nineties startups lacked the skill or timing to execute it, the advantage of replacing catalogues or human agents already using computerised reservations systems with an always-available, easily-updated website was huge, obvious and real as was the size of the future online advertising market. So there was every reason to believe that some internet companies would eventually become huge. By contrast, many ICO startups boast no tangible advantage or difference over the existing congested and conventional markets they purport to serve except for a novel funding method which allows their investors to trade any oversight or traditional legal recourse against the company for a theoretically liquid market to dump the "coins" in if the founders don't even attempt to deliver...
Even though many of the nineties startups lacked the skill or timing to execute it, the advantage of replacing catalogues or human agents already using computerised reservations systems with an always-available, easily-updated website was huge, obvious and real as was the size of the future online advertising market. So there was every reason to believe that some internet companies would eventually become huge. By contrast, many ICO startups boast no tangible advantage or difference over the existing congested and conventional markets they purport to serve except for a novel funding method which allows their investors to trade any oversight or traditional legal recourse against the company for a theoretically liquid market to dump the "coins" in if the founders don't even attempt to deliver...