We want to thank all of the helpers in the bounty campaigns.
Unfortunately, we are closing this phase of the Token Sale as we do not believe that we will raise sufficient funds and we will refund anyone who might have bought tokens.
Here are possible reasons, that we can come up with, for the lack of sales:
- Our BullBear game is a bad idea. Betting on stocks is a bad idea. Betting on cryptocurrencies is a bad idea. Maybe there is insufficient demand. (Though, there is proof that there is demand for financial betting. IG Group, Nadex, Binary.com and many other companies provide Financial Spread Betting, Contract for Difference and Binary Options. IG made £456.3 million in 2016, despite being boxed into mainly the UK by regulations.)
- Insufficient marketing. Some ICOs had terrible ideas, but they spent a ton on marketing and raised lots of money.
- The number of ICOs have exploded. Many investors got frustrated and gave up because of the time needed to find good ICOs or to avoid scams. Or, they focused only on the high profile ICOs.
- We should never have tried to start something that might ultimately need compliance or regulatory approval. This restricted what we can say or do.
- We were not willing to ignore security and gambling laws.
- Other ICOs ignored them. They blatantly promoted their coin as an investment and how it will go up in value. They gave the middle finger to security regulators. They blatantly promoted their coin as part ownership of the gambling house and because the house always wins, their coin will profit from the winnings. They gave the middle finger to gambling regulators. We would not say either of these. If regulators come after a project, it will be bad, not only for the founders but for all of that project's token holders as well.
- To ensure that we're not selling a security or enabling gambling, StockBet adopted a strategy similar to EOS. StockBets site states that it will not list the token on an exchange. Therefore, the token cannot be converted to any other currency and may never have any monetary value (unless a third party puts the token on an exchange). Most ICO investors are flippers. They usually sell and lock in their profits immediately after the token is listed on an exchange, which they cannot do with StockBet tokens (unless a third party puts the token on an exchange). Investors love exits and liquidity, which StockBet was not going to provide.
- We promoted the StockBet Token as a way to play games. We treated people too much as customers, not as investors. The buyers did not see themselves as such. Most token buyers are only interested in making money, not in playing games. See: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2320828.msg23694586#msg23694586
User Yuuto asked:
"I think the idea of social competition where people can match up with each other instead of having to deal with a boring order book is great and will boost the business. However whether or not an ICO is going to be worth an investment is doubtful. Where are the token's value actually going to come from?
User Coldsnap4457 replied:
"The token's value is going to come from multiple sources
- Winnings. Token holders are like the house. The house always wins.
- The white paper says that a % of the house cut will be burned. So with deflation, the tokens will go up in value
- Demand. Let's say people want to gamble in total $1 billion worth. They'll have to buy Stockbet tokens to do this. This will drive up demand for Stockbet tokens and its value.
User Yuuto replied:
"True. Thanks for your clarification.
So the plan is when the ICO ends, every single bet will be processed in the tokens that are sold in the initial ICO stage, correct? I mean this is definitely interesting and i've personally wanted something like this(1v1 bets) for a long time.
Hopefully more people can hear about this project :-)
- To ensure that were not on the radar of regulators, the StockBet website rejects buyers from U.S., Canada and China. Most other ICOs did not do this. We received this message:
- "I was about to join in the token sale when I read that US and Chinese customers were excluded from the token sale.
Are you not loosing out on a huge customer base?
Will US customers generally be excluded even from betting on Stockbet?"
The above are guesses, as nobody will be able to do a survey of all the people who chose not to buy the token.
As stated on StockBets website, the plan was to have two phases of the Token Sale. The first phase is the one we are closing now. Phase 2 was planned for 2018. There is a slim chance that we host phase 2 if the following happens:
We raise sufficient funds to:
- pay for a regulator-approved ICO
- pay for proper marketing
If we can host a regulator-approved ICO, then we can clearly articulate the following:
- We will list our token on an exchange (to appease the ICO flippers)
- We will use funds to get a license for gambling
- Tokens will go up in value because:
- Tokens represent the house. House always wins and winnings will drive up value of tokens.
- We will burn a % of the house cut, which will induce deflation and drive up value of tokens.
- If the market wants to bet a $1 billion worth, they will need to buy StockBet tokens, which will drive up the tokens value.
- We will solve problems plaguing financial betting sites, such as the following (all of which can be solved with a cryptocurrency and smart contracts):
- Operator cheats. They tell you that you won $200, when you really won $300.
- Rogue employees steal your money.
- Takes days to open an account: You have to provide your passport, drivers license and utility bill to prove your residency.
- Takes a long time to deposit your money.
- While your money is in the operators pocket, you are stressed because you dont know if it will get stolen.
- Can take 3 days to withdraw your money.
- Expensive fee to withdraw.
- Hackers steal your identity.
- Our mission is to replace IG Group, Nadex, Binary.com, etc.
Therefore, we will keep the records of the tokens that bounty helpers have earned up until 2017-11-20, just in case we are able to progress. If we host phase 2 and it is successful, we will award the tokens, that you earned in phase 1, to you. Though, you should not expect that this will happen for certain. If it does not happen, please accept our apologies for wasting your time.