Last year was the year of the ICO’s, hundreds of millions were raised by startups with some great and not so great ideas. Analyst from Tokendata found that 142 failed before raising funds, 276 failed after sale and another 113 were classified as semi-failed. The failure rate was estimated to be between 46% to 59% of all ICO’s in 2017.

The Scams:

With any new industry, technology and or opportunity, scammers are at the forefront of finding ways to exploit and benefit from any given situation. There are many fraudulent groups who are looking for a quick cash grab. You can quickly spot-check a scam by researching the team, detailed whitepaper, and project progress. Below are few examples:

Cash grab endorsement: The best example is Centra, which was endorsed by Floyd Mayweather and DJ Khaled. Because they were able to raise pre-ICO funding, they were able to throw millions at celebrity endorsements.

Research the team: use Google and LinkedIn to cross check their experience and connections. One of the most recent of these projects is Miroskii, which has Ryan Gosling as a graphic designer.

With these fraudulent companies, we can hopefully learn what to look out for. Here are few more projects: Droplex, Onecoin, Borg DAO, Hong Coin, Karbon, and ToTheMoon.

Great ideas, just not ideal:

Most of the blockchain based projects are all great ideas. Some of those don’t necessarily need to be on the blockchain because it doesn’t really solve anything by having it there; while others won’t mature into an actual product because the idea is just not achievable.

Swishcoin is a hybrid shop-n-pay software for brick-and-mortar venues featuring an online smartphone (or tablet) POS terminal. Swish increases effective floor space and reduces operational strain during peak times.

Failed Ideas: SwishCoin, Branche, Chain of Points, and Respectonomy.

Quick wins

Now more than ever, we need to move from the great ideas to implementing projects that solve a solution through blockchain technology for everyday use cases. Use cases like buying goods or services that leverages the blockchain and digital currency. From companies like Basic Attention Token, Factom, Gigapp, Taskfair and Bitjobs among others which are at the forefront in making this a reality.

Ideas behind a Company

Mostly everyone in the space is busy working on short term goals of building projects that once built, can’t sustain itself and fail like all the other 2017 projects. Not a lot of companies are thinking of a long term vision, of building a company around their project like Gigapp, who looks to transform the global gig economy and trade of goods utilizing NEO smart contracts. From featured post to premium accounts and other features which will help the company sustain itself.

By: Hamid Shariff