Let’s talk ICOs
By Tamar Salant on ALTCOIN MAGAZINE
Let’s talk ICO’s.
Not hyping or trash-talking but really thinking about this phenomena.
*Disclaimer- This, of course, is not financial advice. Make your own skilled smart decisions. Don’t look for others to blame for your rashed mistakes. etc. etc. etc.
When we think about the purpose of ICO’s it really has nothing to do with the state of the market. ICO’s are a great way to enable investors, who don’t have to have 1M in their account, to invest in products they believe in, to become active participants, help fund projects and bring them to virtual-life. Decentralization is a technological concept, it’s meant (among other things) to cause a new way for apps and programs to work. DAO’s are meant to change the “traditional” structure of organizations and staking tokens is a way to influence decision making.
If you’ve been around the space for more then 6 months you might remember that when we first started these terms were used to a lot. Not to be too romantic, but this was the vision and purpose of ICO’s and many other blockchain based projects. To take an existing reality, reshape it and make it better using existing tools and knowledge. We were all so excited it was contagious, remember?
Utility tokens have a purpose which is not to make people rich overnight, but rather to power a program or application, each dApp and it’s use-case. Take a moment and think about that, I still get excited by that thought.
The great thing about ICO’s is that almost anyone could participate, assuming they’re KYC/AML approved (and a few other features that came along as time passed). But the initial concept- Enabling the global masses to make a decision, a choice based on freedom (and hopefully some research) to “put their tokens where their mouth is” as they choose to invest in projects.
It still surprises me how many complaints are out there in regards to ICO’s which don’t happen in other similar-like concepts- I’ve heard zero complaints from people when their Kickstarter project fails to reach it’s funding goals.
No one blames the general economy or loses ALL faith in the concept of crowdfunding, like in any other type of investment, risk is always a factor to be taken into account. If you’ve invested in an ICO and lost some money due to the fact that it was a bad ICO- Congrats! You have skin in the game. Just like investing in a bad stock or fiat currency that you thought would go up, it happens to everyone.
So what’s going on with ICO’s? It feels like lately many have lost that faith in the concept and skepticism in on the rise. Have there been bad, scammy ICO’s out there- You betcha. Are there actual working (not to mention cool)projects out there currently?- Definitely.
And just like we’ve seen over and over again with new technology concepts- think chatrooms, drones etc. bad players come and bad players go, but the innovation is still there and there are still great programs there- Would you really give up on your cellphone today because bad players in the past exploited the technology behind it?
Don’t give up on ICO’s just because the crypto market is down or because of some rotten virtual apples. Just like people didn’t stop believing in crowdfunded projects even after their solar-water-super-power jetpack didn’t raise enough seed funding, we need to keep on BUIDLing our dApps.
Really look into projects and ask yourself “How cool would it be to use this dApp in X-amount of time” “Would I use this if it were on my phone?”
Don’t think this is the future? Fine. Don’t participate, it’s that easy.
But, if you do find that project that makes sense for it to be built on the/a blockchain and the product is great- Don’t shrug it off “just because”.
So much is going on in the “Blockchain” space- This also includes some great ICO’s that have been building their projects for some time, keeping their heads low and focusing on the product itself, these are not those get-quick scams that just had a white paper and a generic looking advisor list. These are actual working projects that have had a goal and a vision and they’ve been working hard to achieve it.
Bad actors should be flagged, clear(er) regulation is needed, awareness and education are needed, the space as a whole needs to be balanced but this doesn’t mean an extreme shift to no activity at all. If 2017 was the tide and 2018 was the low-tide, 2019 should be just the regular flow.
Keep reading, researching, checking and making logical decisions. There is no such thing as certainty or risk-free when it comes to investment (and in general in life, but that’s a whole other Medium post…), but it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t become an active user. We’ve come too far to just give up on ICO’s “just because”. I can’t emphasize enough how many amazing projects are currently ICOing or about to (I don’t hype or promote. See disclaimer. Even though it’s hard because there are some great teams out there)
If you believe in a project, become an engaged user, become a community member, become a fan, talk to the team. Should every project have an ICO? Of course not, but those who should, should not fail just because of a market “trend”.
“Ask, comment and participate” -Is my personal belief and in this global world that we have, is what we all need.
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