Hello Crypto Family,

It has been very hard for me to continue creating content as I do not do this to earn a living, but because I am passionate about creating content that helps others learn about different aspects of blockchain technology and creative, new tech projects. Along with the excitement, I also enjoy alerting the cryptocurrency community about potential scams and projects that may not be acting in the best interest of the community.

In a heavily decentralized market, it’s easy to get overloaded with the same old Mainstream Media FUD articles: 80% of Initial Coin Offerings are a Scam, China bans Initial Coin Offerings, Bitcoin Continues Crashing For XX Week in a Row, etc. etc. etc. What we need to remember is that there are two sides to every story, at least. Take every headline with a grain of salt, maybe try reading the entire article and doing some fact-checking.

This is another side of just why 80% of ICO’s may not be fraudulent; but, instead, may just be small projects that don’t have the juice to compete in this quickly-becoming mainstream marketplace.

Forget crypto for a minute; did small businesses and startups ever have a chance in this pay-to-play world of marketing?

The banning of crypto-related adverts, along with the Facebook scandal, highlights issues in present-day advertising practices.

Discoverability and Channels of Communication

When it comes to running a business, or any organization, it is important to understand the strategy in which the organization will communicate with its target market — marketing strategy. As communication technology changes, so do the mediums and methods in which we interact as well as the tools we build along the way.

The invention of social media platforms really was an amazing thing for society; but I think it will be sometime until we get this right, if we do. Social media platforms became a way for the average person to communicate/stay in touch with their network/friends, meet new people, enjoy new experiences and gain exposure to a global audience.

If this was something fun and innovative to the average person — you can imagine how quickly the gears started churning in the minds of business owners across the globe. This would take an ugly turn for the worst as we exhibit recent news about Facebook’s data scandal.

Trending Cryptocurrency Hub Articles:

Why Did Zuckerberg Become a Billionaire?

“To me, marketing is about values. This is a very complicated world. It’s a very noisy world. And, we’re not going to give people a chance to remember much about us. No company is. And so we have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us. Now, Apple, fortunately, is one of the half a dozen best brands in the world….even a great brand needs investment and caring.” — Steve Jobs, Apple Co-founder.

Zuck had a great idea, but probably should have finished his classes in college to gain a wider foundation of knowledge to build on as a CEO. The above video is extremely relevant about what is happening with this scandal because, to this day, Apple has cared about protecting the integrity of their users — this was communicated very clearly through the history of their existence, very consciously acting on their words.

Mark Zuckerberg became a billionaire by monetizing on the data of over 2 billion users. That’s 2,000,000,000, over 25% of the human population. In aggregate, our data makes up who we are. Each data point, added together, create a ‘data portfolio’ of who we are. Each action we take on the internet creates data. This text, right here. Data.

Facebook — they charge differently based on the personality of the user a company is aiming to reach. Cost-per-click (CPC) is a method in which companies can pay a certain amount for each click they get from a certain user personality profile. This can range from $0.10–15.00+…PER CLICK.

Companies bid on our attention using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, Snap and any other social platform that offers advertising services.

Okay…How Does This Affect ICO’s?

Through countless hours of deep research on initial coin offerings, token sales, crowdsales, token generation events, decentralized ICO’s, etc. — the phrases go on — it’s become very clear that this market is moving extremely fast.

For instance, it’s become increasingly expensive for any cryptocurrency-related project to send a press release on crypto media outlets. This is a sign that traditional media channels — social media, mainstream media outlets, etc. — are closing their services to these project, forcing a massive inflow of demand to these crypto-specific media outlets.

Similarly, CoinMarketCap, the #1 ranked cryptocurrency price aggregator website, would not accept crypto adverts unless the submitted form had a minimum budget of $20,000.

How does a project raising funds via an ICO pay such hefty prices for simple banner ads?

Declining Average ICO Performance Trickles

The hike in advertising costs from these crypto-specific outlets began before Facebook started banning crypto adverts. The ban from social media platforms has only exacerbated the situation, along with the mainstream media outlets screaming: “80% of ICO’s are scams.”

Today, CoinMarketCap will not list a cryptocurrency (token/coin) with less than $100,000 24-hour volume. Yeah, $100k…these projects are startups, not robust businesses with huge communities. This means that, today, a project raising $2m in their ICO, compliant or not, will not be able to list on CoinMarketCap unless their community is a bunch of traders or they appeal to ‘whale trader groups,’ which is not an option any project really wants — that’s like taking blood money, you just don’t do it.

An increase in demand for advertising options along with a wave of mainstream operators declining crypto-related adverts is the perfect storm for a FUD campaign on ICO’s.

This isn’t to say that a lot of ICO’s are not fraudulent or scams — I won’t pretend they aren’t out there; however, they aren’t 80% of all ICO’s. If you think about the fact that many of these projects are started purely by developers, well, it makes sense that they won’t have the entrepreneurial wherewithal to navigate the business world — specially one as choppy as crypto.

I’ve seen real projects with real companies behind them completely fall flat on their face with ICO’s. They aren’t fraudulent…they just failed. I would love to see the list of fraudulent vs. non-fraudulent ICO’s because it has yet to emerge. Objective facts are important and a lot of what I’ve seen out there point toward rough market conditions as opposed to a majority of these projects being fraudulent.

Please feel free to share your insights in the comments below! These are just some observations/experiences I have had over the past year or so and the pay-to-play trend has already made it hard for the non-crypto business to gain exposure and grow their brand. You can imagine with all of the FUD created by mainstream media how little consumers see anything crypto-related in positive light.

Don’t just go off of the headlines, research. Check your sources. Facts, objectivity, etc. Don’t be a sheep, be your own person and make up your own mind.