In a world driven by hype and FOMO [Fear Of Missing Out]it is becoming increasingly clear that a diligent crypto enthusiast must have a litmus test to select a token for support in a world where it is difficult to find real viable projects, and good projects with long-term prospects even harder to distinguish than ‘shitcoins’.
With recent developments where most new cryptocurrencies are reaching record lows and new ICO projects are not meeting their wishes after Crowdsale, it is now common for frustrated ‘investors’ to blame ICO promoters on social media instead of blaming themselves for not exercise due diligence to select the most likely winner after the mass sale before purchasing the token during the ICO.
From my extensive observation, it seemed that most cryptocurrency buyers simply bought coins during the FOMO-based ICO (Fear of Leakage) created by the masters of hype behind those coins. Many simply bought without understanding the purpose of the coin after the ICO or what the token was supposed to do after Crowdsale. When nothing happened after the ICO, as is often the case for many ICOs now, then they would jump on social media and scream about the bloody murder.
Recently, my team and I just finished a tour of Africa and some parts of the US to promote the Nollycoin ICO. We organized and sponsored various conferences, held live AMA (Ask Me Anything) press meetings, and held many one-on-one meetings with crypto whales, small investors, and crypto millionaires of all colors.
On top of all that, one thing that amazed me above all is that MOST token holders had NO IDEA about the core business or project behind selling the tokens they were involved in.
Even stranger to my observation was the incredible fact that many could not tell you the value of the project, its goals, or the company’s plan to disrupt the market and grab some of the customers in its industry. They simply bought ICO because several telegrams or Facebook pages they visited kept telling them they were buying. Hodl and buy more ‘. Most simply worked on the herd instinct, not on objective reasoning.
Now, if most of the people I met were just teenagers or people without education, I wouldn’t be so surprised by the level of ignorance of many crypto ‘investors’ I met. On the contrary, many of those I met were college graduates and people of some financial status. Yet less than 10% of them could easily articulate why they bought the coin in the expectation that its value would increase over time. Wherever I went, very few people could tell me the name, experience and ability of the corporate managers of a company that sells coins.
The only thing most of them could point out was that the coins were recommended by ‘respected’ influencers when the facts proved that most of them were paid to create FOMO and a reputation for otherwise useless shitcoins.
Apart from the so-called fake influencers, all that many cryptocurrency buyers knew was that the names of the team leaders were Russians, Chinese or Koreans, although they knew absolutely nothing about them. As if all you need for a successful ICO is to list the names of people from Korea, China or Russia that no one could verify even with a simple Google search.
While I agree that there are certainly many things to consider when deciding whether project tokens will grow over time, I think the acid test and the most immediate evaluation criteria should be the usefulness of the coin itself beyond what would happen in crypto exchanges.
Although most crypto token owners I met didn’t even know it, the reality is that if you bought a token from most ICOs, you didn’t actually ‘invest’ in that company. You would not buy company shares and you would not buy any securities from the company.
And at best, what you did when you bought tokens during most of the ICOs was ‘donate’ to the project in exchange for giving a service token or coin that has no legal value other than a business ecosystem controlled by the issuing company.
In words, other than your hope that the price of the token will ‘smile’ or rise to become a millionaire, there is nothing else you can do with the token other than enjoy the benefits provided by the ICO company, if anyone.
Since no one could have predicted with certainty how Crypto would behave on the crypto exchange when it finally got there, and recent experience has shown that most token prices would most likely jump in the first weeks after the exchange opens (due to big sell-offs by speculators), there would be it makes sense to look at what other value or utility you can get out of your token, other than the expected ‘moonization’ of the stock market.
As the crypto revolution has continued to evolve, reshape and adapt to different market developments, the only way to ensure your money is not thrown down the drain is to make sure you can still use those tokens to get great value and benefits even if you you could sell it right away for a profit on the exchange.
In making this decision, you need to ask yourself this primary question: What is the value, product, or service generated by the company selling the token that will give me enough value for my money to make this purchase worth my time?
In the world, the price of tokens on different stock exchanges is falling, the more opportunities you have to use tokens in real life beyond the expected listing on the crypto exchange, the greater the chances that you will not end up frustrated or stranded. tokens that are useless to you.
So, you have to ask again and again: IF this coin has never been traded on the stock exchange, would I still be happy to support the vision? If this token has lost 70% of its value on the exchange, can I still use it and get value for my money elsewhere?
If you couldn’t answer these questions in the affirmative after reviewing WHITEPAPER and filing the company’s claims, then you should think twice before buying that coin.
A recent case study
Take the current ICO like Nollycoin which is a token that drives a movie distribution ecosystem that supports Blockchain. Coin promoters have created different utility scenarios for coin buyers to ensure that no matter what happens to Nollycoin on the cryptocurrency exchange, their sponsors and token owners will continue to smile.
Some of the great useful resources related to the Nollycoin token in the Nollytainment ecosystem include
• Ability to use Nollycoin tokens to watch exclusive movies in cinemas and cinemas
• Ability to use the Nollycoin token to access 1000 movies on their Netflix-on-steroids blockchain Movie distribution.
• Ability to use Nollycoin tokens to purchase products and services at NollyMall which is like Amazon’s platform for entertainment-based products.
• Possibility to use Nollycoin tokens to pay tuition fees on the NOLLY Academy platform and partner companies
As you can see, beyond the usual expectations that tokens will be listed on a cryptocurrency exchange platform, you need to look beyond the hype ico, the immediate and future usefulness of the token and the viability of the underlying project behind it.