This is actually one of the best types of projects in the cryptosphere and better than just investing in bitcoin in my opinion (I've said before that they bring value in guaranteeing the investment capital in USD whilst also paying interest at the same time). Unlike other coins, the devs can't dump the tokens as it will cost them more coins in interest rates (which they already profit from as the coin demand increases - look at bitconnect which was the first and has profited massively from their lending rates and have amassed far more coins than they have paid out). The project is sustainable even without any real business propping it up. So what I'm trying to say, is that the premine is not something to be wary of like in traditional alt coins, it is something to help the sustainability of the project as all the interest is paid in these coins (bitconnect has never even had to go into these reserves because their coin keeps increasing, anyway).

The cloud mining seems like a decent idea too if there is significant investment in equipment as I'm sure these projects can generate enough funds for this.