ICO's are selling snake oil?

[lkn]

15 hours ago, Brunolem said:

Yet, I remain convinced that while governments may not be able to get rid of them, they can very well create their own, then with their friends of big business, decide that only their cryptos are acceptable for most payments.

Why would a government want to create a cryptocurrency? They can just do digital money, though there are already dozens of private companies offering digital money, and I think most governments would rather create the regulation for digital money than be a provider of these services.

 

For majority of people, the underlying technology doesn’t matter at all, only the convenience with which they can use digital money.

[Brunolem]

22 minutes ago, lkn said:

Why would a government want to create a cryptocurrency?

 

They can just do digital money, though there are already dozens of private companies offering digital money, and I think most governments would rather create the regulation for digital money than be a provider of these services.

 

To answer the first question: harmonization and control.

 

Having dozens of companies with dozens of cryptos would be more a curse than a blessing.

Just imagine the complexity of managing simple daily life activities...it would be exactly the same as living in a country where the dollar, the euro, the yen, the yuan and a few others would be accepted for payment!

 

Thus, every person would need to manage a virtual wallet with a multitude of currencies (cryptos) that he or she could use according to the preferences of each seller: say, Lotus accepts only bitcoin, while Big C accepts only ethereum, while Macro doesn't accept any except its own crypto, and so on...

 

What a headache!

 

And I am not even talking about the management of these cryptos' volatility...

 

One currency, or crypto, per country, or group of countries, is more than enough, but is unlikely to happen without government intervention.

[Brunolem]

49 minutes ago, lkn said:

 

For majority of people, the underlying technology doesn’t matter at all, only the convenience with which they can use digital money.

Talking about convenience...

 

A major convenience with currencies is to be able to use round numbers: this article costs 100 baht and that one costs 1,550 baht...nice and easy...

 

Now, bitcoin has a limited supply of 21 million units, meaning that for most payments people have to deal with fractional numbers: this article costs 0.000132 bitcoin and that one costs 0.00437 bitcoin!

 

How convenient!

 

Imagine the average grandmother (the world is full of grandmothers) dealing with that!

 

Another major headache would be the lack of reference.

 

When there is only one currency, everyone knows that the regular price of such pack of chips is 25 baht, and then can compare prices from one retailer to another.

 

Now, if you have 5, 10 or 20 cryptos...which is the regular price? Tesco selling at 0.000043 bitcoin, or Big C selling at 0.0769 ethereum?

[Blackheart1916]

2 hours ago, Brunolem said:

To answer the first question: harmonization and control.

 

Having dozens of companies with dozens of cryptos would be more a curse than a blessing.

Just imagine the complexity of managing simple daily life activities...it would be exactly the same as living in a country where the dollar, the euro, the yen, the yuan and a few others would be accepted for payment!

 

Thus, every person would need to manage a virtual wallet with a multitude of currencies (cryptos) that he or she could use according to the preferences of each seller: say, Lotus accepts only bitcoin, while Big C accepts only ethereum, while Macro doesn't accept any except its own crypto, and so on...

 

What a headache!

 

And I am not even talking about the management of these cryptos' volatility...

 

One currency, or crypto, per country, or group of countries, is more than enough, but is unlikely to happen without government intervention.

Sounds like Argentina in 2002!!

[jspill]

On 23/01/2018 at 1:25 AM, janclaes47 said:

You said he bought in December, which day was it 11 cents in December or even in the 30 days prior to it?

 

And by the way, it isn't $9 now , it's $8.05

I meant that the ICO ended in December. They take some time, you have a presale, crowdsale, and at presale it was worth 11 cents, yes. 

 

Yes it was worth $8.05 when you posted that, and now $8.50 today, and if you post again tomorrow I'm sure it will be worth something else.... prices fluctuate. Likely $20 a month from now. Point is he made a ton of money. 

 

I wasn't trolling I was just giving OP an example of a friend that made a boatload of money. I didn't participate personally, wish I did. 

[jspill]

With this kind of thing on CNBC I can understand why some people are skeptical :) 

 

 

Tittiecoin would've been the icing on the cake - https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tittiecoin/

[12DrinkMore]

12 minutes ago, jspill said:

With this kind of thing on CNBC I can understand why some people are skeptical :) 

 

Tittiecoin would've been the icing on the cake - https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tittiecoin/

 

TittieCoin is now at $0.002408 USD

 

That is not going to get you very far down Soi 6.

 

[jspill]

9 minutes ago, 12DrinkMore said:

TittieCoin is now at $0.002408 USD

 

That is not going to get you very far down Soi 6.

Up 16% in the past 24 hours that'd be good for an entire year on the stock market! 

[Brunolem]

2 hours ago, jspill said:

With this kind of thing on CNBC I can understand why some people are skeptical :) 

 

 

Tittiecoin would've been the icing on the cake - https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tittiecoin/

Brings back memories of the late 90s with pet.com and the likes...

[lkn]

11 hours ago, Brunolem said:

To answer the first question: harmonization and control.

 

Having dozens of companies with dozens of cryptos would be more a curse than a blessing […]

The government already provides a currency that *all* vendors accepts, it’s called cash.

 

Companies still try to monopolize “digital money”; you have BTS with their Rabbit Pay, food court cards, MRT with their prepaid cards, LINE Pay, Bangkok Bank now pushing Union Pay, etc.

 

So already the payment system (in Thailand) is fragmented, but cash is accepted *everywhere* and bank debit cards are accepted in all larger shops (like malls, supermarkets, and ATMs), and so is VISA/MasterCard.

 

If stores wants to accept WhateverCoin in addition to cash, the government does not care, and nobody cares if WhateverCoin is based on blockchain technology or a central database owned by some company (like the existing payment solutions).

 

So no, the government is not going to create a new cryptocurrency, it makes zero sense. Just like the government is not going to start to compete with all the existing payment solutions that is out there.

[Brunolem]

1 hour ago, lkn said:

The government already provides a currency that *all* vendors accepts, it’s called cash.

 

Companies still try to monopolize “digital money”; you have BTS with their Rabbit Pay, food court cards, MRT with their prepaid cards, LINE Pay, Bangkok Bank now pushing Union Pay, etc.

 

So already the payment system (in Thailand) is fragmented, but cash is accepted *everywhere* and bank debit cards are accepted in all larger shops (like malls, supermarkets, and ATMs), and so is VISA/MasterCard.

 

If stores wants to accept WhateverCoin in addition to cash, the government does not care, and nobody cares if WhateverCoin is based on blockchain technology or a central database owned by some company (like the existing payment solutions).

 

So no, the government is not going to create a new cryptocurrency, it makes zero sense. Just like the government is not going to start to compete with all the existing payment solutions that is out there.

There is a major difference!

 

All the payment systems you mention are directly linked, or are derived, from the local currency.

In other words, they are baht, only in another form than cash...there are no currency conversions involved.

 

On the other hand, using bitcoin to pay for the BTS would be exactly like using US dollars or British pounds.

No company would want to do that, not only because of the currency exchange risks, but also because that would seriously complicate the concerned companies' accounting.

 

And of course the more cryptos would be used, the more things would get confused and complicated.

[lkn]

3 minutes ago, Brunolem said:

All the payment systems you mention are directly linked, or are derived, from the local currency.

In other words, they are baht, only in another form than cash...there are no currency conversions involved.

If I want to buy stickers on LINE I have to convert my government issued currency to “LINE points” (or whatever). There are many platforms that work like that.

 

For a consumer, whether they have to buy bitcoin to pay a ransom, LINE points to buy a sticker, or buy a food court card to buy pad thai, it doesn’t really matter: All of it is a hassle, and they’d rather avoid it.

 

5 minutes ago, Brunolem said:

And of course the more cryptos would be used, the more things would get confused and complicated.

I admire your optimism, but majority of people and vendors will ignore all these cryptos as a payment medium. It’s a speculative investment vehicle, and only a payment medium if you have issues with AML/KYC regulation, which most people don’t.

 

Stripe just announced that they will stop accepting bitcoin: https://www.coindesk.com/stripe-to-end-support-for-bitcoin-transactions/

 

[speedtripler]

On 22/01/2018 at 3:12 PM, 12DrinkMore said:

 

How did you manage that?

 

ICO was priced at USD 0.01 and the crapto  today is USD 0.13.

 

USD 100 would be USD 1,300 before all the leakages trying to get it out of the system.

 

https://icobench.com/ico/electroneum

 

I bought btc for $3

Bought eth for $6.50

Many others too...