The ICO Dilemma: When I look at the marketplace for Initial Coin Offerings today, I see a plethora of upcoming and ongoing ICOs springing up all over the place. In general, the construct of our site is to list many of these ICOs for informational purposes with links to their site and whitepapers where available. That is the simple approach to these listings. For the ICOs that we find interesting for one reason or the other, whether it be the project details or the corporate structure we select them to write a profile about.
Now let us not be foolish, of course, we are in business to make money as well, not just a magnanimous friend to the possible contributor. At times we get asked to list ICOs and there may be a fee attached to that. But, we do not accept all ICOs to be on our site and this leads to the Dilemma.
Urban Crypto Simple Listing
When we list an ICO on our Upcoming Listing page here, we list numerous of the upcoming ICOs that are coming to the marketplace in the future. We do not receive compensation from most at this time, with a few exceptions. This is just to give you, the reader, a place to see a comprehensive list of Upcoming ICOs and a link or two for you to do your own research. We do not endorse any ICO nor encourage you to invest in them in any way, shape or fashion.
When we list an Ongoing ICO here, it is the same as the description above. You will notice, however, that there are some of these listings that we have marked as “Read More” and others that we have not.
Urban Crypto Company Profile Pages
For the ICOs that have their own profile page, we have found something that interests us or stands out and it is a project that we understand and feel that we can add value to you by summarizing what the project offers based on the information provided by the Company. We do not suggest that you invest in these ICOs but they may be worth further researching on your own. We give you a summary, you then decide if you want to read further on their website or whitepaper.
Urban Crypto’s ICO Dilemma
Now comes the hard part, which ICOs are worth writing a profile page about and which ones are not. To be sure there have been many successful ICOs in the recent past like Bancor, Tezos and EOS all raising tremendous amounts of money. I guess the first question is, is raising a lot of money a fair evaluation of an ICO? Shouldn’t the ultimate performance and return to contributors be the deciding factor?
That aside I am left again with the question of which ICOs to profile. I have some requirements that have to be met. The first is obviously that I have to understand the nature of the project that is being presented. I don’t feel like I have to understand the blockchain coding under the project, but rather the mechanics of, the purpose of and the value that the project brings to the need it is attempting to solve. My research starts with reading through all the information provided by the company via its website, whitepaper and other sources.
Once that has been established, the question is to write or not to write. Sometimes I find information in the documentation available confusing and concerning. EOS, which raised and is still raising significant amounts of money concerned me with all the disclaimers. Was this a successful ICO if they guarantee you nothing even if the project is a success. Let me state for the record, I am not saying not to invest in EOS, this is just my observation. Due to this concern, I chose not to write about it. Instead, I wrote a post on our blog explaining my concerns.
Now that there are so many ICOs coming out of the woodworks, the choice is endless. The ICO Dilemma continues, wiith limited resources, I have to choose wisely as to what ICOs to write about. I came across one recently that was really confusing and as I was preparing to write something, I couldn’t do it. It was the ICO for Digital Developers Fund. I will not disparage the company here but you can read the website and whitepaper and decide for yourself if this one makes any sense.
So the ICO dilemma continues and I will continue to attempt to bring you as much information regarding ICOs that seem interesting and legitimate as we move along. Wish me luck!!!