Quote from: jlp on November 07, 2017, 01:02:56 AM

Quote from: dobrescu.mihnea on November 03, 2017, 01:35:36 PM

Hey jlp, what do you think about Playkey ICO? It seems quite promising.

In regards to PlayKey, they seem to be much further along than most ICOs. They not only have a working product, but they had it for a few years and it looks impressive, though I didnt try it. Their business is understandable.

If they got 2.5M users in 2016, I do not understand why they need an ICO or another cryptocurrency. Why dont they continue growing their customer base? If their market is truly as big as they say, then they should be able to make more money by growing their revenue instead of fund-raising through an ICO.

Why dont they show any revenue from the 2.5M users? Does this mean that they really dont have 2.5M users, or that their free service does not provide enough value to warrant a fee?

Their website says that the game industry is $109 billion. This is misleading. This would include games for infants and Zynga Poker. Their source (https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/the-global-games-market-will-reach-108-9-billion-in-2017-with-mobile-taking-42/) shows that most of this is not relevant to PlayKey. I would assume that it is the $24.8 billion of BOXED/DOWNLOADED PC GAMES that is relevant, and NewZoo says that this is dropping.

Their white paper claims that 1.5 billion people play PC games. If we assume that PC games are played mostly by males, then this means that close to half of all the males in the world play PC games. Is this believable? Most infants, middle-aged men and seniors do not play PC games. I would think that its mainly teenage males up to men in their 30s that play these games. A significant part of the world do not have PCs. 4 billion people do not have internet access.

Their video tells you to invest in their token. This means that they are pushing a security, which is illegal in most of the Western world unless you restrict your investors to accredited investors and comply with KYC (Know Your Client) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) requirements.

Because the team is based in Russia, they are immune from European and North American laws because Russia does not have extradition agreements with them. Therefore, the team doesnt need to worry about pesky European and North American laws. The team can say and claim anything they want. They can lie and worry much less than other teams about repercussions. If they defraud you, there is little that your lawyers or government can do to help you. An American law firm has filed a class action lawsuit against Tezos (based in Europe) to get money refunded to American investors. Your law firm wont be able to do that against PlayKey. You wont be able to do anything.

The risk with any ICO that is selling a security is that if the regulators crack down on these, the token will crash. Teams that are in Russia may be immune from punishment from regulators, but you will still suffer if the token crashes.

Their website says that they raised 16 039 ETH from 1048 backers so far. When I looked at their smart contract (https://etherscan.io/address/0x26d08b9d227933a85e855656dc46ab889e183c88), it says that it received 2,404 Ethers, not 16,039 Ethers. Maybe they withdrew some Ethers from the smart contract, so I went through all 25 pages of the 1242 transactions and none of them were withdrawals. So, are they using a second smart contract, or are they lying about the amount of ETH raised so far in order to give you the impression that they are more popular than they really are? I would tend to think the latter. Since they are immune from European and North American securities laws, they will not get punished for fraud by them, so they can lie a lot more.

I think many ICOs lie about the amount that theyve raised.

This makes me question the validity of PlayKeys other numbers:

2 500 000 games
120 servers
$7 000 000 raised from VCs and business angels

It would seem intuitive that there should be a sizeable market for this business. The risks that you are taking are:

Will regulators ban the token in the future?
Their numbers are not reliable.
If they defraud you, you have no recourse.

Great input, thanks a lot. If and when you have time, I'd also love to hear your thoughts on Gizer. Its ICO launches through KYC, on SAFT, the same platform which launches tZero in a few days. Gizer is similar to Enjin Coin, and they also have a working product and promising ideas. Looking forward to your view.