2016 Was the Year of Crypto Currency ICO's for Me.
All through 2016 I participated in every ICO I could afford to buy into. It was very exciting. The world of Crypto Currencies were expanding rapidly and all of these teams needed seed money to launch their ideas. We were happy to be part of the early stages of Lisk, Waves, Rise and a handful of others. We were unfortunate to have participated in the DAO debacle. That one tied up a good amount of funds and we barely broke even.
Why I Stopped Buying Into Every ICO.
The DAO was a big downer for me but the one that really pissed me off was the Synereo AMP crowdsale through BnktotheFuture in the Fall of 2016. You see I was a big holder of AMP and when they announced the crowdsale it literally killed all momentum for the token. Why does a company need so much money to launch a platform? Why would you hurt the current holders of AMP?
In the end I realized that much of what is being done in the world of crypto currency is purely based on speculation. This is how I feel when I see most ICO's, "Give us money so that we can begin working on some big idea". There are so many good projects that are already doing big things and they did it without $20 Million in Bitcoin or Ethereum.
When I saw the ZCash launch it gave me hope that the era of large ICO's will come to an end but it looks like 2017 will be another huge year. Wouldn't it make sense to invest in projects via ICO that already have some deliverable product or service? These are the ones I am looking for.
One Thing ICO's Taught Me.
If you are purely joining an ICO to speculate on the price of the token, the day it opens for trading, you might be disappointed. I found it to be a super stressful event if you are purely involved for the immediate profit. The only token that I hit a home run with was LISK. I hit a 7X profit on the first day! The rest opened trading down and I would just break even or be down for a few months. I would be better off trading my Bitcoin on the markets.
Are You Participating in ICO's.
If you are, which ones do you like and please give me a reason other than speculation. In the end the tokens that actually do something will be the ones that survive. This is why I love Bitcoin, Steem, Dash and Monero.
My Favorite Launch So Far in 2017.
My favorite recent non ICO launch was ZenCash. If they can do it I know more companies can self fund and then bring their token to market to continue development and growth. There are a few others that will be launching soon and I will continue to bring you the news.