News ICOs ‘All Scams Until Proven Otherwise,’ Says BitTorrent Creator

BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen has become the latest high-profile cryptocurrency industry figure to urge explicit caution over all ICOs.

Cohen: No Need For ‘Benefit Of The Doubt’

In comments on social media, Cohen, who stopped short of criticizing the ICO crowdfunding model itself, implied industry journalists in particular should not involve trust when rating an investment opportunity.

“As a journalist you shouldn’t give any ICO the benefit of the doubt that they’re a ‘good project,’” he wrote on Twitter. “Appropriate bayesian priors are that they’re all scams until proven otherwise.”

His comments echo those of Bobby Lee, CEO of Chinese cryptocurrency exchange BTCC, who this week described ICOs as being “95% database projects.”

The choice of vocabulary feeds into a wider topic of debate within cryptocurrency in recent months, which has seen both Bitcoin educators and developers criticize Blockchain projects, which do not involve complete decentralization of infrastructure.

While not stating examples of what constitutes “proof” that an ICO is genuine, Cohen nonetheless included incompetence as grounds to call a project a “scam.”

“Incompetents raising money to do things they are incapable of doing are scam artists,” he added.

Incompetents raising money to do things they are incapable of doing are scam artists — Bram Cohen (@bramcohen) May 31, 2018

A Matter Of Trust

Included in his tweet was a post from Zcash team member Zooko, who in turn had linked to an article in the New York Times about the ongoing troubles behind Swiss company Envion, which raised $100 million in its own ICO.

Somewhat ironically, Zooko himself had also just received criticism over being too easily trusting after publishing details of a conversation he held with Bitmain CEO Jihan Wu.

Wu, whom many cryptocurrency personalities have accused of lying over various aspects of Bitmain and his motives, left a positive impression on Zooko, who wrote that he “sounded sincere” despite his own doubts. Reactions subsequently appeared to question Zooko’s position.

Meanwhile, ICO providence is set to remain a hot topic this month as EOS’ record-breaking year-long event ends Saturday having raised over $4 billion without a functioning product.

Tezos, which raised $232 million in 2017, is also set to launch a beta release this month.

What do you think about Bram Cohen’s opinion on ICOs? Let us know in the comments section below!

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