Good list and covers the fundamentals.


This is the key advice - there are so many projects that if it doesn't solve a unique problem or address a gap that is useful to address it might still fail. Not because the team intended to scam, just like any business the idea was not something the market could get behind. That said ...If they remain anonymous... is the biggest red flag. Why would any team who genuinely wanted to make a success of their project, to address a real need and see future success - stay anonymous?

Sure, they might be working on the project part-time subject to raising funds, they may be concerned about also being scammed if they are successful and known. They can say this and again be open about it. Overall though, the team should be transparent in their presence, communications, progress, updates and yes - problems and roadblocks. If they are, then some inexperience, a need to polish the concept, a few gaps in the white paper, etc. are all forgivable. Hiding, not so much.

CBF

All good comments and an important thing to raise. Bit of a personal post as this is such a critical topic.

The team here have traded stocks and shares, commodities, currency, binaries, we've spread bet and ICO'd and no doubt more. We've trained in technical analysis, fundamentals, charting and applied that to all manner of trades.

It's easy to get drawn in, being at the desk for 7am and spending more and more hours reading the news, twitter, feeds, forums, papers, telegram, etc. Catching the markets opening to assess initial direction, place morning trades, hedging on moves, shorting the bad news, etc. Get to 4pm as the EU and UK markets close, but the US is now trading so assess what's happening there, what reports are coming out, how will it affect the Asian markets when they open on the news. Oh, but we're looking at the 24hr markets so there's never a time to stop...

Then along comes crypto. All the above magnified by 100! The trading opportunity of our generation. Wealth creation where the 'youngsters' and tech savvy have the advantage over big money. Gotta get on it while we can!

It's too easy to get sucked in even where you're not really an addictive type. Hey, you're not weak you're hard working, committed, ready for the grind, happy to put in the work.

But please stop for a moment and let the grey haired one share one piece of wisdom!

Develop a Trading Plan and stick to it.

It will help avoid FOMO trading, emotional panics to market moves and help you hone your approach. No trader in the real world operates without a trading plan. People without a cold, hard, rational trading plan are gambling amateurs.

Please search for 'the importance of a trading plan' and spend an hour reading/watching, then build your plan.

These are the trades of my 11yr old son on an IG Spreadbetting demo account - using his trading plan. Bit of luck, lot of sense. (he's better than me!)
https://i.imgur.com/Prg686k.png

If he can do it, you certainly can knowing 10 times more than he does and being far more mature.

You can succeed at trading. Just don't gamble - trade and invest by executing your trading plan.

Regards,

CBF

Do both. Spread risk. Hedge. Just like stock trading and management of any 'traditional' portfolio.

The problem with buying and holding a small cap alt coin is it's just like trying to trade on Penny Stocks.

They seem attractive as it's easier to double your money on a $0.001 value coin (or stock) than on something that's priced at say $100. They seem doubly attractive as you get so many for your money and if they go up you can get a 1000x or 10,000x return.

The problems with this idea, as many have pointed out, is liquidity and volatility risks (along with scams, lack of regulation, ...). There is a very great probability that liquidity (money in the market to buy and sell the token) is being provided by a small number of holders and can be taken away at any time. When they buy in the price jumps, when they sell it plummets. This is in part where the volatility comes from. It's the same effect from pump & dump sessions we see initiated in so many Telegram groups.

However, just because a token is inexpensive doesn't mean it's not one to buy into. If it has a great business case / use case, a solid team backing it, etc. and you understand the field or want to support investment in that area - then buy in and hold through the rough times. History is littered with missed opportunity from startups that no one realised would become so huge. Apple ($0.46 in 1986) beating Microsoft ($0.11 in 1986) or say Coca Cola that never got above $1 until late 1985.

Ok, even for oldies like me the 80's feel like the distant past, but we all wish we'd spotted those and bought shares, we'd be billionaires by now. It's the same with crypto. You can trade the swings, pump & dump or get in at the ICO/IEO and probably lose money - or you can evaluate them against your trading model, invest and hold (so long as the rules of your trading model aren't breached). This is what I personally (i.e. not as a member of the CBF) have done with XRP and PBL. Two very different projects in very different spaces, but I understand the market and feel the projects are sold. Now we wait.

However, do NOT put all your money into small caps / alts unless you love risk and can take the loss of all your capital. Buy into the major projects that might grow more slowly but are more certain to succeed in the long run. That would be like buying into say BP, pretty boring, slow but safe and if you get minced on your alts, these should provide gains enough to offset them.

Don't gamble, hope is not a strategy - analyse, plan then invest.

CBF

Just to highlight this concern - banning crypto trading is not what the UK FCA is looking at, crypto is fine even if regulation to some level will likely come. It's crypto derivatives that the FCA are looking at and they need to.

The main issue with derivatives and what has caused several financial meltdowns, is the difficulty in pricing the derivative as it's value is derived from an underlying asset or basket of them. If, like in the housing crisis, those underlying assets are real estate of different classes, blended into a package, bundled with interest rate products and who knows what else... the true price of the derivative and security that it represents is a nightmare to assure. Hence the outcome being a financial meltdown as even the 'professionals' have no clue.

CBF

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is currently investigating banning the trading of crypto derivatives to retail customers. This is not a new way of looking at derivatives. Retail is generally for vanilla products, e.g. a purchase of stocks/shares or buying foreign exchange. These are most often bought by Joe Public in an Over the Counter trade, that is buying without the need for an Exchange. That might be just a high street shop that changes currency.

Derivatives are Exchange traded and exchanges are regulated and trades carried out by trained and qualified professionals who have the ability to understand the complexity of the derivative product (CDP, CFD, Options, Futures, etc.) The issue with letting the public buy derivatives is they probably haven't got a clue how the products work and no idea how the risk profile of them can be assessed or how they can be accurately valued - so will lose their money hard. Add in the fact all crypto us hugely volatile, retail customers likely will not have the margin to hold these assets without getting taken out by aggressive institutional investors.

This happens a lot, especially in short selling, spread betting, etc. where small traders get shaken out by intentional / engineered market moves by the whales. We see this in crypto too.

CBF

The Crypto space is one of the last truly free markets, albeit with a few too many bad actors at this point.

As the space grows, regulation is inevitable and as with current money and equity markets regulation will vary from country to country. For example, China doesn't like crypto because they will have nothing that threatens the RMB, whereas the UK just cares about the profits / income made and it seems just views it like Spreadbetting or Gambling for tax purposes.

Regulation will play into the hands of the big players; banks, investment houses, fund managers, etc. as they can set the rules and become the gatekeepers just as they were for stocks, shares, currency, metals, etc. for so many years. Great for them as they can soak up the profit for shareholders and fat bonuses and not return it to the crypto community.

I would hope the community at large comes up with self regulation to avoid this, thereby avoiding the draining of wealth into the pockets of those who's only goal is just that.

CBF

Listing should just be the start of the overall development and marketing plan of the project. If a project simply runs one campaign, then has enough cash to progress that's great, but in terms of multi-round funding and marketing that can reach the target audience it would make sense to run another campaign. it is pretty normal, not doing seems odd.

Coming from a startup oriented background it's surprising that this isn't seen more. It's pretty standard for a startup to go through multiple funding rounds to help fund key milestones in the overall business development plan. It's as if the focus is on getting as much cash off an ICO as possible then sitting on the cash... the thing is we don't seem to see the standard set of White Paper, Market Analysis Report, Investor Prospectus, round a/b/c/ funding and so on that would be expected outside of the crypto space.

It would make a project appear more legitimate and the team engaged for the long-term if a second or third round of funding took place.

CBF

Hi All,

Interesting thread. I read through and noted what was called out and thought I'd share here. Not robust scientific scoring, just a note of each time something was mentioned with a few notes. I doubt this is a surprise, but hopefully interesting none the less.

It was concerning to see there were 10 comments about getting rewards on time, clearly that's stung a few people in the past, with some stating the payments were locked out or never issued!

--------------------------------------------------
Project Team - 37
- Experience, real profiles, photos, LinkedIn

Bounty Manager - 37
- Known already, Supportive of Bounty Hunters, Resolves problems well, Spots cheaters

Project - 13
- Has transparent communication, regular updates, good social media presence
- Clear Roadmap with regular updates (7 comments)

Whitepaper - 10
- Original, good quality, not plagiarised

Website - 6
- Good level of detail, high traffic

Returns for Bounty Hunters - 6
- Substantial, Payment Assured, Payment Weekly / fortnightly
also related:
- Payments made on time (10 comments)
- Payments made in BTC / ETH (9 comments)

IEO - 6
- Ability to sell tokens/coins,

Others
Already existing product / project - 5
Number of participants capped - 3
Affiliate links - 6 (Yes 3 / No 3)
--------------------------------------------------

Regards,

CBF

Hi smartcarechain,

Just looking over the list of advantages you mention, can you describe how each of the advantages are achieved or the specific benefits each will deliver in context of your project?

We looked at medical records on the blockchain as part of a cooperative project, and saw some things such as the public nature of the blockchain impacted privacy, European GDPR regulations meaning the permanency of PII data meant non compliance and ownership of the data by data subjects was complex.

Some links that may be of interest:

• https://medium.com/wearetheledger/the-blockchain-gdpr-paradox-fc51e663d047
• https://thenextweb.com/syndication/2018/07/26/gdpr-blockchain-cryptocurrency/

Another EU oriented project that might make interesting reading is http://www.myhealthmydata.eu/

Certainly not experts in this field so any clarification or thoughts you can share on this would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

CBF

Hi, thereader.

You mention; The automation of of anything is always based on data acquisition and analysis, so allow me to comment on that and the Devs in the community can comment on the 'how'. Trusting I've understood your question correctly;

At CBF we have a (manually executed) model for evaluating whether a Cooperative organisation is one we think has a good founding or operational 'basis' and so is worth providing funding for. That may seem a little harsh for a social/community enterprise, but there's only so much money to go around so we have to be choosy.

The key to any evaluation model is defining meaningful, enumerable characteristics that can be measured in a way that is meaningful and can be weighted effectively against others, by context if required. Did I repeat measurable and meaningful enough yet? This is critical as many measures and metrics could be recorded but they mean very little. Meaning being defined as whether the thing being measured shows the project will be a success and achieve it's goals - that are important to you. For example, we can readily measure things such as; Years of experience of each project founding member, Total number of market competitors already in place, Required funding level to achieve stated project goal.

You could come up with hundreds of measures that distill down to a hard figure, group related measures together and perhaps weight them by importance. It may be that Team related scores are more important than say market competitors because you think the market they are targeting is immature and so ready for another competent player. In our case, the need the project seeks to address will have greater significance than revenue levels or market penetration. There's nothing in this approach that most people don't take already, for say things like buying a new car or an insurance policy. You look at what's on offer, contextualised to your circumstances and conclude that a given policy or vehicle, a home or even a holiday is the best choice on balance for your needs, budget, timescales, etc.

The other aspect of this is sentiment. Sentiment is harder to fix a number on. This is trying to measure other people's feelings, perspectives, views, interactions, responses to something you're evaluating an investment for. Perhaps your hard-number evaluation, weighting and contextualisation gives a few options - which to choose? Now you'll look at what others think about it. This is like whittling down a product on Amazon to a 2 or 3 choices then looking at customer ratings and reviews to make your final decision. You can still enumerate the characteristics of these but they're more subjective.

With all this modelled out, you have a consistent way of gathering 'hard' meaningful data, combine with 'soft' data around sentiment, that can be used to evaluate a project. Then you can hand over this model as a specification of the system you would like coding into at least an automated evaluation, if not an automated data gathering solution.

Hope that helps.

Regards,

CBF

It's a combination that works, whether looking at enterprise (social or corporate), healthcare (private or state funded) or schools, transport, food production, etc. The observations about Venezuela in this thread are in part correct, but there was an identifiable level of corruption and over reliance on socialist (borderline communist) principles, along with poor leadership, faux concern for the populous, sanctions and other external actions that stressed the system enough so it broke. The internal issues being evident through the ongoing actions of the leadership.

People are naturally community oriented and will always strive to cooperatively support their families, community, city, nation and so on as it's inherently, perhaps even instinctually, recognised as the best thing on the micro and macro scale. If every individual was isolationist, self-focused and disregarded their place in society then society would fall apart overnight. People understand that cooperation and yes, social support and social welfare, in whatever shape it takes, is a necessity and an inherently good thing for society overall.

In a modern world it is right and proper that fundamental needs are safeguarded for the individual and community. Be that shelter, education, healthcare, food, water, security, etc., as without those there is no bedrock on which to build. Where an individual cannot support themselves, permanently or temporarily, social welfare should be available. However, being a citizen, a member of a family, community or organisation comes with responsibilities. Some of that responsibility is in not abusing the support on offer and understanding it is available only for those in dire times. The rest of the time individuals are obligated to safeguard themselves in these terms, to become educated, stay healthy, engage in free markets, creative production, building commerce and industry for example. This ensures that it isn't take take take to a point of collapse.

As with most things it requires a balance and an assumption of personal responsibility, built on effective cooperation.

CBF

Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Overpriced means the value derived from what you're investing in isn't worth the money. Conversely then, if the amount of value you can derive from the investment is greater than invested, then it's not overpriced.

As @carlfebz2 stated, the problem is that most people In fact, most projects don't know what the value is based on. In an ideal world it would be based on a carefully thought out business and financial plan that investors could understand. Too often white papers and other material produced by projects have no real planning or analysis, so investors making an evaluation on correct pricing is extremely hard, often bordering on impossible.

For co-operatives, which CBF cares about, a valuation is always carefully assessed, even if that's 'projected' based on analysis that has speculative elements in it. ICO and IPO valuation, price setting, size, etc. should be the same. Too often it seems it's a case of what the founders would like to make, not what value can be returned to investors.

CBF

Crypto is the opportunity for individuals, groups and organisations to own the value they create, without an external proxy determining the level of value, by means they do not control. What's more, they get to maintain the means of valuation within the group or organisation if they choose.

Value not just being defined in terms of a dollar/euro/pound value of course.

CBF

We've helped a few and been part of a few.

They work if the project using them has intrinsic value for investors. If not, it's the project offering that failed, not the approach of using a bounty program.

The desire is that by offering bounties, the project will be discovered by interested investors. The risk is hundreds or thousands of forum replies, blog or social media posts, etc. by individuals who are, in the main, essentially just trying to acquire whatever amount of tokens or coins they can from the overall pot, without really getting invested in the project.

This form of speculative involvement isn't a bad thing in itself. If it saves the project real money and still succeeds in raising awareness to interested investors then it achieves its goal. In which case, the work put in by those chasing the bounty is valuable to the project and worth rewarding. The cost of bounty rewards is just the cost of doing business, no more expensive than advertising and in fact would only be picked up by crypto enthusiasts, so really quite targeted compared to regular advertising.

Making sure the project comes to the awareness of the investor types is the hard work. That requires a compelling project offering to be made and real value to be provided from the project existing. Take Restart Energy Democracy for example; that was a great example of rewards, value and a meaningful project.

So yes, they work, for the right project - but that's always the key to success.

CBF