Ha, the top 100 holders own ~99% of the total token supply. Really poorly executed distribution model: https://etherscan.io/token/tokenholderchart/BAT
I still belief ICOs are made up to launder crypto-money. Invest anonymous into your own ICO, ed voila, the money is clean to use.
If I was a VC, I would be pooping myself. Quick, get on the phone with your old college buddies at the SEC / IRS, and stop this right now! The whole VC model is going to implode if companies can raise money like this. No equity, no dilution, no kissing ass... MADNESS
Ostensibly, the tokens here are representative of future services on the platform. Is this just a fancy kickstarter?
Was Tesla's model 3 preorder basically the same thing? They raised $400M dollars ($1000 down payment on 400k reservations) on future sales of a product not yet built.
You can download the Brave private browser at www.brave.com. The Brave browser automatically disables all ads and tracking when you browse any website. The founder of Brave also created JavaScript.
Could someone explain this to me like I'm five? I have an understanding of blockchain, kinda. What is this ICO?
What's ICO? Initial Coin Offering?
What exactly does this mean? Brave raised $35m? I find that hard to believe but wow if that's true.
Got a question on de business-model side of things: if Brave will block ads on websites, and replace them with their own advertisement and pay the user for looking at it, won't the owner of the website (aka the person that generated the valued content) get cut out of the deal? If so, assuming Brave succeeds, wouldn't it "kill the web", as there is no incentive to generate web-content anymore (a big % of websites gets financed through ads)? Am I missing something here?
Lol, nobody understands what really happened here. Myself included!
They used some kind of digital currency to purchase shares in an upcoming venture?
I'd love to try to explain this to my grandma
What's the incentive for a user to switch to the Brave browser?
What advantages does it have over a different browser using ad- and tracker-blocking plugins, especially now that the Brave browser allows ads from these ad providers?
If the only thing you can do with a token is sell it to a greater fool, you're participating in a Ponzi. It's all fun and games till the music stops, then lots of people are going to be left without chairs, and in these cases, life savings. This space has existed for over 6 years now, which ICO has generated revenue near it's "raise" ? Even 1M of revenue?
Bitcoin is boring, but it's a real currency you can use. Move fast and break things is a bug not a feature. If you can't buy things with it, it's not a currency, it's Russian roulette.
Is this expected to affect the market for ETH ? And if so, by how much ?
In the end this was a fail for BAT. Sure they got the money, but what would have been more valuable would have been a massive bunch of new incentivised users.
It's great that only 5 actors control a majority of the value LMAO. Even Gnosis handled their roll-out more gracefully than the BAT team.
More details please
Plus, I don't really see any reason to be impressed by "the founder also created JavaScript". That's just like saying "the founder is a famous fuck-up whose legacy has made you suffer".
how does a fund raiser (ICO issuer) pay back investors?
All these ICO's have been avoiding any SEC regulation regarding private security sales by claiming the tokens are just a method to use/exchange services on their platform, not as an investment.
However, when ICO's like this one keep happening where only 100 "accounts" own 99% of the ICO offering, you pretty much lose that argument of the tokens only being there for use of the platform. It's a private security sale, and I only see one way this will end. The SEC will make a case out of one of the ICO's 100%. They do not take advertising to unaccredited investors lightly.
My only suggestion, if you are involved in any way with an ICO (developer, investor on the team pre-ICO, etc.), either get out of the U.S. now and/or make sure all operations are happening outside the U.S. I was almost involved with a company doing essentially what these ICO's are doing (not blockchain/crypto currencies), and fortunately I figured it out before being involved, but it did not end pretty for them. Like the IRS, the SEC/others will come down hard, not a matter of if at this point, it's when and who gets the beating first. They love making cases out of someone to set precedent.
With the general public playing into an overbought token market fueled by Asian countries for the most part, the regulators/SEC will come down extremely hard on this.
I think investing in Ethereum/Bitcoin is fine, just know what you're doing, record your cost basis for when you bought it. And seeing first hand what the IRS does to people who avoid paying taxes, just make your life easy, when you exchange back to a currency that is considered a currency by the IRS, just pay your capital gains on it and move on with life. The IRS will catch up and many people will go to jail for tax evasion. Don't be one of them. Obviously, all this only pertains to the U.S..
Also for fun, if you really want to see the hysteria around the Ethereum price right now, check out r/ethtrader/ or even the Ethereum FB group. People are throwing their entire savings into this while not knowing anything about it besides everyone in the group hyping it up amongst themselves. It's really sad. Ethereum is now actively pumped heavily on MLM sites/blogs. It's beyond gross. I believe Ethereum is an amazing project and am worried that this hype fueled hysteria, once it collapses on itself, will give Ethereum a bad reputation. It is a great protocol.