Seen absolutely the same happen with ICOdrops. They tend to rate what they like, which is not always colliding with what investment a certain project attracts. That seems to be more correlated with how good an investment network a certain ICO has. Which we have no idea about, sadly.

Also since most ICOs are not funded based on thow viable their business is, but how much hype they generate+whale investor network.

I am really really sticking to my guns on a viable product.
Stuff like Nafen, SKYFchain to mention a few really seems very very far from phasing into a viable product that has any practical usage. - Like most ICOs. Others like Moneytoken is just piggybacking on Celsius and SALT which from the start was pretty silly product ideas.

Well that was illuminating. Thanks for lots of feedback Kim from Welltrado. (are you on easter vacation, with all this writing 

So should we make a better list? Here is the original ones:

I am usually checking

1. Are they real? - LinkedIn, etc.

2. Independent verification - award-shows etc. Don't matter if they actually win anything. Just that they are outthere.

3. Business model - can it live outside of crypto (CRUCIAL!)

4. Are they "chaaanging the world" - then you are out. get out. I want ICOs that actually happen. Not elephants in space.

5. Does the token model insure that I will make money? Preferably by incorporating burning in the service layers.

6. How is the ICO using blockchain? First. Educate yourself on how the blockchain works, and the current limitations! Often ICOs want to use the Blockchain for an insane amount of transactions. Or put things on the Blockchain which really should not go there.. However it sounds "cool" and "crypto" friendly.

7. I disagree about the apparent consensus that an ICO project should use the Blockchain for something crucial. That seems to be a rule made by crypto-evangelists, not business oriented people.

8. Check if the project is backed by VC. Check if the VCs have legitimate business outside the ICO industry.

9. Don't use xxx amount of social views, xxx amount of Telegram users etc. For anything. ALL the teams hire external marketing. Some of the agencies, if not all,  tampers alot with the numbers, to sell the hype that they promised the ICOs. Don't necessarily let weird numbers weigh much in your decision.

10. Hype is cool. But a good business model, and an idea that can survive outside of crypto because it was born outside crypto, is preferable.

That's all for now!

I really love Icodrops. They are non-profit, and help sort through alot of shit ICOs. However looking at the "ended" ICO section, many of their choices ends up not funding.

That to me reflects the other side of the coin, what they tend to like. What is in their interest is not necessarily what is in the market interest. So the narrow focus can sometimes be a bit of an disadvantage? Or is it just me?

Okay looked at Icobench. Indeed many ratings. Lots of bad ones though. But hey I guess that the nature with many ratings.

However as someone said earlier... How does this compute in the real world? Is there a need for this? Who are the competition?

Looking at this factors, this Ico will probably fail.  Steam, Origin, Uplay are enough. They have the money, they have the network and are deeply involved in publishing side as well. Also I have a hard time to see what crypto gain.

Sometimes it feels like ICOs want to build a separate world for crypto to live in. Every goddamn successful platform apparently needs an crypto equivalent. No matter how hard the playing field is.

But isn't that the reason why we got into this mess to begin with? Too much gut feeling - too little checking of independent verifiable facts?

I am usually checking

1. Are they real? - LinkedIn, etc.
2. Independent verification - award-shows etc. Don't matter if they actually win anything. Just that they are outthere.
3. Business model - can it live outside of crypto (CRUCIAL!)
4. Are they "chaaanging the world" - then you are out. get out. I want ICOs that actually happen. Not elephants in space.
5. Does the token model insure that I will make money?

Any stuff I forgot?

No ofcourse not.
Too little. too late.

Well what can I say? I did

The market is full of fear, but looking at the threats and their probable demise I took the plunge.

Must say, that this seems like one of these naive dreamlike ICO things, that sounds very lovely on paper but is so fundamentally huge and problematic that I just cannot see how it would work in real life.
After reading the whitepaper it wisely focuses on theoretic issues, and not how on earth they are going to break into a market dominated by few actors, who have nothing to gain by adopting this.
In reality all the big technological players has agendas fundamentally opposing this one/or will race towards having their own version of this.


So no. Not for me. But I might just not be clever enough to understand it properly

The massive market sensitivity is hard on the nerves.

But looking at the big picture, crypto has all the cards. Countries will introduce legislation. Yes. they will - unless ofcourse they are smart.
New technology will circumvent legislation, and the bureaucracies will be on the behind again.

The real challenge is us. Do we invest our crypto in new altcoins that can actually tie the currencies to real world assets? That is basically my chief concern.
We need ideas like Rentberry and Welltrado. Ideas that solidly tie into a real life framework, and infuses the blockchain and crypto into the recipe.

Well this is a pretty interesting discussion.

One thing is a country is friend because it has no regulation (Denmark), or it has legislation that has actually taken a real step towards positive legal framework.

I am curious what country is the best for ICOs? I have heard that many are going for Switzerland? But I don't know. Could be interesting knowledge!