http://www.xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=3890905&mc=9&forum_id=2#35385547

People pretending to have technical knowledge, hedge funders talking their own stack, people shilling ICOs they secretly invested in on pre-sale terms, or are getting paid to promote. The industry is so new that there are few litmus tests for knowledge or competence and many of the retail "investors" are idiots impressed by any promise of money or success; their normie peers grant them an overgenerous genuflection because they're into "crypto," and its "cutting edge tech" and "ljl did you see that dude who forgot about his bitcoin and is now a millionaire ljl"

Consider John McAfee as the obvious example, it was recently leaked that his fee to shill ICOs on his twitter is 2 BTC. he recently announced a service to WRITE whitepapers for projects. "ok mcafee is a lunatic," you say. but the trend goes up to the top and is applicable even to 'respected' figure heads. Consider Digital Currency Group's Barry Silbert, tweeting out that everyone should be following Ethereum Classic of all fucking things, but doesn't disclose his position. OmiseGo, reportedly one of Vitalik's favorite projects, publicly hinted at 'big announcements' for months that never came as promised. there are dozen of examples: tron, cardano (which barely has any product), Charles Hoskinson. Tezos, a project with some legitimate claims at an "edge," has been taken hostage by some fucking sociopath with a long history of failure. he now sits on $1.5 billion dollars of retail investor money at his disposal. the founders of the project are completely cut of from the money, and can't even give a status update to investors after missing multiple project launch dates because they've been hit with too many lawsuits. Investors cling to ANY hint at positive news to fuel delusions of grandeur.

We have an ICO almost every day now. In practice it allows a group of 5-6 dudes a chance to raise $10m at a $40m valuation, keep most of the tokens for themselves and become millionaires for a few weeks of work while evading any long-term responsibility to deliver on the project or be held accountable for their lofty promises.

There are maybe a handful of good dudes who support the technology, but they are exceptions to the rule. Part of me wants to see all this fail bigly at some point. Schadenfreude, etc.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3890931&forum_id=7#35385721)