Now I've dabbled in the ICO game here and there and had some success. I have looked into some of the most recent ICO's which seem to be garnering some attention, and even I had my eye on prior. I have seen some crazy things in the ICO space lately, but as of late it seems to be less and less about the project but rather just a money grab by all parties involved.
I have been looking at the Pillar token ICO lately and was really interested in the project they are proposing. I had put away some Ether to hopefully participate as the ICO date approaches. In the last few days, a popular youtuber who I watch consistently had begun to talk about his interest in the project as well. This obviously sparked additional interested in the project as his viewers began to take notice. The popular youtuber then promised his viewers he would have a special gift for them in the near future. I thought, could it be? No. Couldnt be.
But a couple days later, he made the announcement. "Hey Guys" ....." Have I got something for youuuuuu".......he had sent an email to the Token Founders and negotiated a Pre-Pre-Pre sale just for his " good ole' subscribers" ....Naturally I took him up on this offer and sent the email to the requested email address. Later that day I got an email from the Pillar Token folks, and they basically were saying, they had received astounding support and were working on getting back to everyone. I initially thought " Great!, I got in, hopefull I'll get some cheap tokens"...
But over the last few days I have this growing feeling. It just doesn't seem right. Like , WTH - you just send an email and get some early bird tokens. Like nah, im good. Thats not why I got into Crypto. Im not super righteous or anything but...shit, it just felt dirty......I debated in my head for the last day and a half or whatever it is until this morning where I saw an interview from the Pillar Lead....idk his name to be honest... I watched the interview and it just further confirmed my thoughts...
Nothing glaring stands out but...idk ill sit this one out. He mentioned how the Pillar team didnt have the resources to handle all of the email they received from the youtubers subscribers. They gave out a gmail address but think the volume would be such and were unable to reply from their gmails any longer. They now were working on getting the email addresses xfered over to Mailchimp or Something. Like ok, I get it you didnt expect the traffic...But shit, if your having trouble handling just email addresses WTH is going on in there....Idk just with the ICO climate and how things have been penetrating the news lately about ICOs..I think there are gonna have to be some losses before things get back to some degree of what normalcy should be..
Projects that have the ability to see mass adoption, lead or consisted of experienced proven developers should be show support. ICOs that in reality have limited, and will most likely be isolated to their platform for the near future should be shown that level of support and promise. Millions of dollars potentially raised for no platform, little experience and a hope and a dream are scary. Not saying this about Pillar, because again I wanted in. But in general, with the pre-pre-pre sale "special hookup" along with the ICO market in general...and theeeeeennn...not being able to handle the emails.....im all set for a while....ill wait until I can get into a ICO that I am interested in holding for the long term.
Now, many people may still make a ton of cash off this and I hope they do. This is just MY opinion and why I wont be participating. I would love to hear your thoughts on the ICO scene and this scenario. Is this ok? Should I just put some ETH down and make some money too? Let me know.