Duncan Riley of Silicon Angle wrote about another record breaking ICO or initial coin offering. Instead of going the VC route, some startups are raising funds through ICO’s.
Someone was talking to me about the month of June as it related to domaining. They felt it was a down month. I replied that in June I spoke to more people who I have only known as domain investors, that wanted to talk more about cryptocurrencies. I think the important thing is to understand they are different animals, no matter how hard some want to make them brothers from another Mother.
I like crypto and think it’s an important topic be up on, we will be adding a writer shortly just focusing on crypto.
From the Silicon Angle article:
Block.One, developer of the new blockchain platform EOS.IO, announced Saturday that it has raised $185 million through an initial offering of its cryptocurrency “tokens,” beating the previous record of $150 million raised by Bancor in mid-June.
Based in Hong Kong, Block.One’s EOS.IO aims to “decentralize everything” with a platform that can support thousands of commercial-scale decentralized apps and parallel execution along with asynchronous communication. “Block.one intends for the EOS.IO software to support distributed applications that have the same look and feel as existing web-based applications, but with all of the benefits of the blockchain – namely transparency, security, process integrity, speed and lower transaction costs,” the company said in a press release.
The platform is unashamedly aiming at high-volume enterprise users, with a promise that it can support hundreds of thousands of transactions a second without charging users any fee, more than the 24,000 transactions that Visa handles every second, according to Tech In Asia.
I think people should read the book popular delusions and madness of crowds. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds
“We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.”
These startups can simply come up with an idea (most are silly), launch an ICO and retire. Why even use the funds to actually start up. The only reason these are hot is because gamblers are buying them up fast in hopes for that 2-5 times quick flip (or more)…and have been getting it in some previous ICO’s.
Other than that, there’s no reason for this madness.
Interesting to me is that the whole point of these things is to get cash, not crypto. It’s a cool idea, and maybe some or a lot of money can be made, but these folks want cash, not EOS, they are getting rid of all the EOS (which they made up anyway). Just something about that feels wrong.
if u see most of the investments are china based, run for your life
I like how you said that crypto and domains are different animals Ray. However when I speak to folks, whether in person, or sharing on a panel I relate the similarity in “investments” because of the digital/virtual assets aspect 🙂 I some domain investors/brokers “float/work the spread” in domains while others invest in the “project” so to speak. Same as in Crypto 🙂 Crypto is just another “domain” for us to learn about.
I’m still listening to this but I was particularly interested in what Marc van der Chijs had to say (I’ve followed him a long time way before Crypto) his chat starts around 3:48:00
Whoops forgot. Link https://youtu.be/ftHilppocY8
I believe the BlockChain & Crypto technologies will get stronger and gain exponential adoption.
Everyone has an opinion about which currencies will become blockbusters: eth, eos, etc
I did secure a number of crypto, eth, eos, coin domains and I’ve been fielding offers.
We’ll see how it all plays out.
As far as the domains in these arenas, anyone know if ETH.COM sold last week, and if so, who was the acquirer?
It’s a fascinating arena. I know lots of hedge funds, banks and VC groups have placed significant funds into these markets/instruments.