What an exciting time to be alive! What an exciting time to be sailing the seas of blockchain and cryptocurrencies as the industry develops and grows.

In a space that continues to grow and be accepted by leaps and bounds, you will ALWAYS have the naysayers, non believers and skeptics. Aside from all those sipping on that half empty glass of haterade, there are just as many smart, educated and equally excited individuals who are taking massive action to aid in the growth and adoption of this industry.

ICO’s and the Future

ICOs have proven to be a truly AMAZING way to raise capital, and while it is important to keep things decentralized in the crypto space, it is also important to gain mass adoption. There was a tweet by Vinny Lingham that really stands out to me on this subject:

http://twitter.com/thecryptopher/status/914279978421948416

Regulations, Guidelines and the SEC

As negative as it may seem, I also think that the SEC stepping in with regulations is not the end of the world. It will be important to have some guidelines set to protect us from the scam coins aka “shit coins” as we move forward. You know the kind I’m talking about. It's the kind of project where a band of clowns get together and assume that with a somewhat decent looking website and half assed pdf, labeled as their “whitepaper”, they'll acquire copious amounts of ETH/BTC. Then they leave you high and dry and end up getting charged with fraud by the SEC.

This is EXACTLY the reason we need some guidelines in place. Personally, I think the above mentioned ICOs looked like a scam from the start. However, for all those who are trying to ride the waves on the high seas of blockchain in search of the next token that will “moon”, it can be harder to decipher between what to invest in or not. This is why I always preach to make sure that you DYOR (Do Your Own Research).

Cryptocurrency Awareness and Adoption

Knowledge is power and key to learning this crypto and blockchain space. Speaking of knowledge, did you know Tai Lopez has the crypto space on his radar?

http://twitter.com/tailopez/status/912783852539645953

Hate it or love it. He is also right, you know? While all the FUD and Fake News fill your twitter feed, guys like Tai are the balance to all the negative, and will help be the propeller of cryptocurrencies and blockchain to the masses.

ICOs for an Established Companies

One of the newest ICOs that has my attention is Unikoin Gold. Think of it like, eSports swiping right on the Blockchain. It’s a match! Unikoin is a decentralized egaming token. You can read thier whitepaper here. They have a rock solid team led by a successful CEO, Rahul Sood. Not to mention the heavy hitters on the board like Anthony Di Iorio, Co-founder of Ethereum. If that isnt enough heavy weight for you, the project is also backed by Mark Cuban and Ashton Kutcher. (Yes, Iowa boys do know about the blockchain.) Being out on the seas as much as I am, I have no doubt that these two Sharks know they see real value in Unikoin Gold. If you remember my post about The Mercury Protocol, then you'll remember I embedded a heartfelt and transparent message written by Mark on reddit where he talked about some of his previous success and also his opinion on blockchain based tech.

"I'm a fan of blockchain based applications and have been for years. The price of Bitcoin has nothing to do with how blockchain can be used to create potentially transformational applications." - Mark Cuban

Unikoin Gold is a token sale for an established company. With that being said, there is a very clear picture of what the tokens will do for the company and boldly, the future of eSports. This will be the world’s largest token sale in the eSports market without a doubt.

"The eSports market has expanded from $194M in 2014 to what will be an estimated $1.2B in 2019. Growing in tandem is the demand for esports-related wagering products. All told, fans wagered nearly $6B on esports matches and esports-themed games of chance in 2017, a number projected to rise to nearly $20B by 2020." - Rahul Sood

I highly recommend you read Esports Meets Cryptocurrency written by Rahul and posted to his medium blog. It's a great piece about the project and where it’s going. As of today, here are some stats on the crowdsale:

The crowdsale will be officially closed as of October 22nd. So if you are thinking of jumping in, you have a few hours left. Remember to DYOR.

Long Live The Blockchain! - Cryptopher Columbus

You can see the full post here http://cryptophercolumbus.com/news/283/blockchains-unikrn-esports-on-the-blockchain/