Yet again, John Oliver didn’t fail to deliver in his recent show dedicated to the “Wild West” of cryptoland. His satirical take-down of the crypto market was terrifying and hilarious at the same time, but there was something he missed…

There are two distinct sides to the crypto community. On the one hand you have the enthusiastic evangelists and developers who work hard to unlock the potential that blockchain technology presents.

On the other hand, you have the cash grabbers. The money hungry folks who ride the hype and use age-old marketing techniques to extract money from less scrupulous investors.

These ‘shillers’ wrap up sub-par products with shiny jargon, hire a b-grade business celebrity as an advisor and slap a ‘blockchain’ stamp and proceed to ask for tens of millions in exchange for their ‘utility’ tokens that they never intended to bring ‘utility’ to.

As Oliver pointed out crypto market is the “Wild west and ripe for manipulation,” hilariously pointing to the child-like video ad for a pump and dump group that would be completely illegal in the equities market.

But there’s another alarming technique used by shillers. It is the concept of a ‘public presale.’

It is the most ridiculous and rapidly growing ICO marketing ploy. Smoke and mirrors. If you are a crypto investor, it is likely that you have fallen for this.

What is a ‘public presale’ it? And why is it a sinister marketing ploy?

We all know that a presale round is a capital raising that an ICO undergoes before it opens the sale of its tokens to the public. These rounds were historically reserved for large/strategic investors of friends and family, and often come with a heft discount on tokens.

Obviously these hefty discounts attracted a lot of interest from the average punter, and soon enough everyone wanted to be a part of the presale round. However, small investors are usually rejected due to insufficient bank rolls or networks.

The unmet demand for investors participating in a, ICO presale grew fast, so the shillers got to work…

They introduced the concept of a ‘public presale.’ Usually anyone can participate in a public presale, and by doing so they score a bonus on the tokens they buy. Everyone who participates is happy because they scored a discount right?

Wrong!

More and more we are seeing that EVERYONE who purchases tokens gets a discount. That means that NOBODY actually paid less than anyone else, defeating the entire purpose of bonuses.

So how are investors accessing the ‘real’ ICO presale bonuses? By joining an ICO Buying Pool

Of course there are still legitimate presale rounds happening on reputable projects. Presale allocations on good projects are VERY hard to access for average investors. The best way to access these rounds is to join an ICO buying pool. By aggregating funds, these buying pools can get their members huge bonuses on top tier tokens that would otherwise be impossible to get.