ICO: main risks

So, the experience of the “ First Book on ICO ” ( in two parts so far ) and the last article showed that: firstly, many people do not understand what ICO is, why it is necessary and what is important - what is its uniqueness; secondly, and on the other hand, there is too much hyip among this phenomenon.

Let's try to start dotting e, until the troubles become too much.

No. 0 Bubble
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The most annoying and terrible thing is that Bitcoin - the first blockchain solution in the world - appeared precisely as a retaliatory strike against the crisis of 2007-2009 (or 2008 - as it is more convenient). People received a unique tool that, due to automation, pseudo-anonymity, decentralization, was able to solve many problems. But what next?

Then they did it: a) super-expensive, b) speculative and c) not much interesting service because of this. And what's more - they introduced into it something against which it was created.

Because of this approach, the state (specific state bodies) has every reason to declare this sphere high-risk and put under a ban or, at least, strict regulation.

What happened just yesterday , however, I personally saw nothing new. The question now is not whether the United States can, for example, present something to the potential co-founder of the btc-e exchange , and not even when the cane system in Russia against crypto-assets finishes its actions, but when the crypto community itself understands that the old logic (ideology, too - in a good sense) does not work in the new formation, as part of the new techniques.

And this is perhaps the biggest risk that anyone who calls himself a crypto or just an anarchist and who is ready to develop a blockchain not just as a set of code, but also as an important set of rules and principles, must evaluate.

№1. Team

In the ICO, like in any other sphere, there is a project where you definitely don’t invest : Mavr, OneCoin, E-dinar ... But there is always the fear that the project will not start not because it is a scam , but because within the team there will be something wrong.

The human factor, if in a word.

And this has happened more than once. Therefore, one of the criteria for the initial assessment is always the team: how professional is it, where is it lit up, what are its famous members, and so on.

Moreover, thanks to the study of this aspect, it is possible to establish interrelations of different projects: like, say, the same OneCoin & Kibo; or - Polybius bank .

But the main thing that investors are now forgetting about is that ALL the teams that came out at the ICO are new teams: even if something is started by them in the framework of old projects or on the basis of old ones (like, say, Brave), it’s all the same a) a new sphere and b) a new approach.

If we take an example from the centralized world, then perhaps one of the brightest among the latter will be the attempt (from / for) to fight the cellular services market operators by mobile operators: yes - they have a large customer base; Yes - they are available for everyone in the phone, which is (almost) for everyone, or even two; Yes - they have a good technological arsenal.

And yet, the client operator as a subscriber and as a person with a bank account are two big differences. Here, in the ICO, exactly the same thing: it can be motives, expectations and anything.

The fact of the team itself became obvious to many, and yet, judging by the appeals of customers, but every month there are only more of them, I understand that no one has a clear scheme. But, I will reveal the secret, it is not in principle, there are, rather, assessment scenarios. I call them antifraud-rating ICO. But for a couple of paragraphs, I hardly describe it, so I will focus on the principles:

1. Geolocation creators : let's say, those who made a profit on the first wave of the ICO, began to act as advisers, guarantors for those who come today. Everything is good and right, only a few questions arise immediately: does the guarantor know about his players and what exactly? second, even more important - can the guarantor be engaged in the supervised project at all if he himself is in constant movement around the world. No, to work remotely - no one forbade it, especially in this area: the question is that flights, conferences, and so on - all this takes a lot of time, which, by the way, is not so difficult to calculate. I hope
   the essence is clear.
   
   
2. Labor relations : when and where he came from, left, why and why. Who worked with
   what is the data from colleagues. Search for old resumes and vacancies. General experience, professional skills. After all, often the advocates now act people who a) are known and b) represent a certain brand or name. But the question arises, how much does this brand and name correspond to what a particular specialist is in charge of? Another important factor is age: a banal example is access to the key for a multi-signature of a person who is 50+: if you are familiar with scoring analysis, you will understand that personal liability insurance,
   for example, 20, 30, 40, and 50 differ in coefficients. Here is almost the same.
   
   
3. Past developments : very few, again - from the experience of me and from those sources that are open to study, should pay attention to this factor. Meanwhile
   he is saying: let's say, for the same OneCoin, this is very well traced .
   
   
4. Openness : I think this is a crucial moment for the blockchain. If a person is not open for dialogue, let it go even 48 hours a day, he initially a) does not know how to plan, b) does not support the principles of the blockchain itself and for me personally is at best someone who wants to make money on the ICO blast wave . Check is easy - write to him / her.
   
   
5. Understanding the legal, economic, business component of the project: here,
   unfortunately, at least from the first and second - always problems. I understand that first of all in the arena - techies and they are not interested in it, but if we look at the experience of past years and areas,
   let's say, e-commerce, e-money, then we will see that it is not taking these factors into account to be fatal even for the most advanced projects.

№2. Technology

Perhaps, for many, this is a cornerstone: on the one hand, the inheritance of R & D is clearly visible, since the result is not known in advance, and on the other, almost all blockchain solutions have analogues in the ordinary world. And not taking this into account is one of the most common mistakes .

Let's take, say, Golem , yes - an interesting service, but a) to the questions that were asked through my blog on Habré, I haven’t received an answer yet, and b) the service itself solves problems that have already been solved before. And, you can see, their solution is not a trivial task from an engineering point of view.

Or SONM? This is especially clear if you trace not very successful projects, say, filecoin. And compare, say, with fellow: such as Storj.

But the best thing is to ask the experts a question: the good of the forums and chats has not been canceled. Yes, and toster.ru, for example, too. Only now, again, based on the primary analysis, I come to the conclusion that in the Russian-speaking environment almost no one does. And in English, not to say that it was a popular solution.

Meanwhile, it is a) cheap, b) quickly, c) a definite plus for investments.

The problem is that ICOs want to evaluate quickly - technically, let's say, whereas only fundamental analysis works here, and I would even apply the term heuristic to it, because the sphere is just being born.

Number 3. Law

Dura, as well-known, a fool, and the law - the law (in the sense of - severe): SEC, as I said above, returned to my favorite phrase “assets with income = shares”, the prosecutor's office (again - above) again took up the persecution and getting sticks, and this is in a country that wants to catch up with everyone and overtake on crypto-regulation: why is there in a country where the President himself met openly with the founder of one of the world's leading blockchain projects.

In this sense, Russia is not that unique, but rather, she herself does everything to lose the trust limit. Here is a summary of the previous series: in 2014, it’s not the Letter or some regulation issued by the Central Bank, but ... information is a kind of press release from the PR service of the Central Bank, which says that bitcoin and others like him are money surrogates. No reason, as I proved in a joint study, it did not have (and does not).

In 2015, the Ministry of Finance, guided by the lobby of the Ministry of Internal Affairs-SC-Prosecutor's Office and partially - Rosfinmonitoring and Rospotrebnadzor begins the development of the notorious laws with administrative, and then completely - criminal penalties for the "production" and "distribution" of crypto-assets. But the Ministry of Economic Development and large market players realized that all their miles, bonuses, loyalty cards, certificates and other marketing tools would suffer in such formulations and started a war of doubts - as a result of which an amendment appeared which, in general, completely killed the Finance Ministry’s initiative, to which, moreover, the Central Bank said that it did not want to engage in such a sphere as a regulator at all.

Meanwhile, business related to p2p left Russia.

In 2016, government agencies understood all the sins committed earlier and took the position: “blochain - yes, Bitcoin - no”. And even began some developments in the field. In particular, today there is a masterchain in banks and attempts to create various kinds of state registers based on the blockchain.

But already in 2017, the commission for the study of crypto (which, for example, includes Elina Sidorenko, Olga Skorobogatova). Let me draw attention to the following: E. Sidorenko is a professor at the Department of Criminal Law, Process and Criminalistics of MGIMO, and she is also the head of the risk assessment team for cryptocurrency turnover in Russia.

That is, from the entire galaxy of lawyers they chose not anyhow anyone, but a professor who knows a lot about criminal law. And the group was named: risk assessment ...

And all this against the background of such statements: miners will not be taxed , Russia will become the first country with a law on cryptoactive assets , “there is no reason to prohibit” and so on.

But not only Russia is marked by this: in the EU they want to equalize IPO and ICO, you already know about the US, China prohibits turnover, then permits again, and Singapore lingers with special acts ... There are actually a lot of examples, but the essence is that the state and the blockchain are incompatible in essence: and incompatible from the position of the state.

Therefore, every crypto investor must accept this as a given, as a fact. But for now, for some reason, the position that the alleged state regulation will fix everything for the better prevails.

№4. Other risks

Of course, in this form it is very broad and for many is not an obvious category. But still this is exactly the case, because here it can be attributed: political risks, when everything is decided, for example, by nationalization, which has nothing to do with law / law; cultural risks, when a product can be perceived by a certain ethnic group, or if a group of interests is perverse; competitive risks: let us say, when classic providers start a “war” against blockchain services as their counterparts. And so on.

The purpose of this material and all the previous ones is precisely to normalize the ICO market and crypto without state participation: yes, it is difficult and not done in one year, but we already have all the capabilities and tools. It remains only to deal with the basic principles.

PS Selection of materials on the topic:

1. Choice of jurisdiction under ICO
2. White paper Golem - a good example for training skills
3. White paper from Chronobank - not bad either
4. Classical spheres against / and "chain-blocking"
5. The most popular mistakes when evaluating blockchain projects
6. Blockchain and social risks
7. Why is it so important for blockchain services to be independent ?
8. How crypto assets are treated in different jurisdictions
9. A little about the ideology of p2p

UPD. Continuation of the topic of scams in the ICO .