Nobody knows @smooth's identity either, yet he has a very high reputation and is obviously technically skilled. I would estimate @smooth is more technically skilled overall than James, but James is always coding methodically (for example @smooth is a polyglot of programming languages as am I).
I know James is passionate about anonymity and he really latched onto Zcash when we discussed all the various ways of doing anonymity and I think I convinced him that Zcash was the most anonymous technology because the mix set is every coin.
I think he is committed to it. What you have to ask yourself is if he has the necessary resources and can he manage it. And does he have the marketing people to pull it all together.
If the marketcap is small enough in terms of the ICO then one would think it should have very good upside if those other factors are handled well.
It looks to me that we are heading into another ATHs scenario for Bitcoin by first half of next year, so it appears to me that $100 million market cap altcoins are going to become the norm. Monero is almost there. The Chinese speculators are also coming.
If they do raise all 30,000 BTC that would be sort of high at $20+ million marketcap, given Monero is only at $80 million. Also remember marketcap is always much greater than actual money invested (or extracted) due to the wealth effect, so $20 million seems high to me, but Waves and Lisk apparently raised half that much combined.
I was thinking more of a cap at 10,000 BTC, which I think I mentioned to him. I do think 30,000
BTC raise is too high for my risk/reward preferences.
Then again maybe we are about to blow doors off with crypto and Bitcoin to new ATHs, so maybe we move into a new realm of $billion market caps for top 10 altcoins. I think that actually may happen, because we are heading into the thick of the Sovereign Debt Crisis 2017 to 2020. Yet still I wouldn't buy into a $20 million market cap with anonymous developers. At least Ethereum with its $18 million raise had Vitalik speaking publicly as driver of its marketing. Yet $18 million nearly three years ago is not the same as $18 million now.
See my blog today for more details on likely Bitcoin breakout and general macroeconomic environment:
https://steemit.com/money/@anonymint/speculation-rule-buy-when-others-are-irrationally-pessimistic-cautious