
Block.one’s sale of its digital tokens dwarfs other coin sales - Crafty_Gurl
https://www.wsj.com/articles/investors-bet-4-billion-on-a-cryptocurrency-startup-1527591600
======
Animats
Read the history of the South Sea Bubble.[1]

 _" For example; one company floated was to buy the Irish Bogs, another to
manufacture a gun to fire square cannon balls and the most ludicrous of all
“For carrying-on an undertaking of great advantage but no-one to know what it
is!!” Unbelievably £2000 was invested in this one!"_

 _" Then the ‘bubble’ in London burst. The stocks crashed and people all over
the country lost all of their money. Porters and ladies maids who had bought
their own carriages became destitute almost overnight. The Clergy, Bishops and
the Gentry lost their life savings; the whole country suffered a catastrophic
loss of money and property."_

 _" Suicides became a daily occurrence. The gullible mob whose innate greed
had lain behind this mass hysteria for wealth, demanded vengeance. The
Postmaster General took poison and his son, who was the Secretary of State,
avoided disaster by fortuitously contracting smallpox and died!"_

 _" The South Sea Company Directors were arrested and their estates forfeited.
There were 462 members of the House of Commons and 112 Peers in the South Sea
Company who were involved in the crash. Frantic bankers thronged the lobbies
at Parliament and the Riot Act was read to restore order."_

We're getting close to that point.

[1] [https://www.historic-
uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/South...](https://www.historic-
uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/South-Sea-Bubble/)

~~~
pjc50
"Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" is well worth
reading on this and other bubbles and pre-20th-Century memes.

More recently (90s) the Albanian pyramid schemes collapsed the economy and
prompted a UN intervention to restore order in the country.

------
thisisit
There are so many things to note about this ICO:

a. This is one of the longest running ICO. It started last year somewhere
during summer.

b. EOS's terms are rather ominous:

 _block.one is building the EOS.IO Software but it will not configure and /or
launch any public blockchain platform adopting the open source EOS.IO Software
(the “EOS Platform”). Any launch of an EOS Platform will occur by members of
the community unrelated to block.one. Third parties launching the EOS Platform
may delete, modify or supplement the EOS.IO Software prior to, during or after
launching the EOS Platform.

The EOS Tokens do not have any rights, uses, purpose, attributes,
functionalities or features, express or implied, including, without
limitation, any uses, purpose, attributes, functionalities or features on the
EOS Platform._

Some argue this keeps EOS from being sued by SEC. But given the way Bitshares
launch was handled by the same guy I think this might be a problem.

c. The CTO or the head tech honcho for this is a guy called Daniel Larimer,
who has been pumping out one coin after another - Bitshares, Steemit and now
EOS.

Every coin has some new fangled Proof forumla:

Bitshares had DPoS

Steemit has "Proof-of-Brain" (I kid you not)

And everyone of them is touted as the next big thing. AFAIK this is unique in
cryptocurrency world where people tend to evangelize one particular coin.

------
iopuy
They should use the 4 billion to buy a crypto portfilio of coins with actual
value. Litecoin and Ethereum would be a good start.

~~~
JustFinishedBSG
Litecoin and Ethereum don't have value either.

~~~
ghthor
Nor does any currency with your "argument".

~~~
JBReefer
Try not paying your taxes with Dollars.

------
throwawayqdhd
Am I an idiot for not understanding blockchain and ICO sales at all? Like, I
get them somewhat in theory, but not understanding how they would actually be
used?

~~~
icebraining
There are a few (e.g. Kik, Brave) that claim the coins will be used in some
sort of platform, that presumably will sustain the value of the currency.

~~~
jimothywales
However one should always be hesitant to believe these claims because there
are no regulatory agencies currently protecting investors in the case of ICO
fraud.

------
zaroth
Is there any reason to believe 99.9% of the “purchases” are not just fake
self-dealing?

Is there actually $4B USD equivalent tied up in Ethereum escrow somewhere,
proof of stake style, or can the issuer not just “buy” their own tokens,
tumble the “proceeds” for a bit, and “buy” some more?

------
ktta
>EOSIO is an Operating System on which scalable Decentralized Autonomous
Communities “DACs” can easily be built, launched, and governed. Made possible
through asynchronous smart contract communication, EOSIO is designed to
empower communities to create the next era of disruptive organizations.

Oh no. I really hope they fork an existing OS.

(Source: [https://block.one](https://block.one))

~~~
pjc50
It's not an OS in the conventional sense, it's more of a platform - definitely
not like any existing non-crypto software, closest only to things like the
etherum DAO.

------
nubb
Is there a way around the wsj paywall?

~~~
bentpins
Facebook redirect works,
[http://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/inv...](http://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/investors-
bet-4-billion-on-a-cryptocurrency-startup-1527591600)

Here's a bookmarklet

    
    
      javascript:location.href='http://facebook.com/l.php?u='+location.href

~~~
lgats
or replace the wsj.com with fullwsj.com

