Quote from: cryptohunter on March 15, 2016, 02:28:49 AM

Quote from: smooth on March 15, 2016, 02:14:46 AM

Quote from: Bit_Happy on March 15, 2016, 02:08:28 AM

Have you even once considered the gross excess of "shady pump and dumps" is enabled by the toxic, hostile environment for truly original, worthwhile projects that might need some good programmers to get paid?

There is nothing wrong with getting paid and there are many good models for doing that. The unregulated nontransparent ICO model is not one of them.

I agree with cryptohunter on the ICO model being deeply flawed (even if it does "work" in a few exceptional cases -- that does not disprove the general rule) but I don't agree that banner ads can fix it.

Quote from: cryptohunter

Half ICO half POW not so bad.

Yeah its only half bad

To be clear PoW can be bad. The ultra-fast PoW coins where a bunch of insiders and pumpers rent hash and rape it for a day or a week does nothing to remove manipulation. Slow and steady PoW distribution over years is much harder to game, but arguably that too could be gamed by long-term monopolization (if it turns out that Bitcoin's largely-monopolized mining is not a temporary condition).

But surely POW if following a fair release set of rules.

1. advertised release time and date
2. low block reward at the start
3. diff adjusts quickly
4. long term mining

surely this is

1. far harder to game
2. far easier to see if it is being gamed.

ICO is total mask for what happens behind the scenes. With no rules at all.

POW is not perfect but it is 99% better than unregulated non transparent ICO with little advertisement and over in a flash.

Not too mention the other kind of ICO where they just run off 100% with the funds.

Some ICO try harder than others by a long way to ensure some kind of half decent distribution at the start.

No disagreement.