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Wolf of Wall Street: Cryptocurrency ICOs Are 'the Biggest Scam Ever' (betanews.com)
An anonymous reader shares an article: Jordan Belfort -- the real-life Wolf of Wall Street -- has warned that ICOs (or "token sales" or "coin sales") are "the biggest scam ever" and will "blow up in so many people's faces." The former stockbroker, who spent nearly two years in prison for fraud and financial scams, says that the Initial Coin Offerings used to raise money for cryptocurrencies are "far worse than anything I was ever doing." His fears seem to stem from the way ICOs differ from the more traditional IPO. With IPOs investors gain shares in whatever company they plough money into, and profits can be easily shared. With ICOs, however, there is no mechanism in place for distributing any profits that may be made, profits are reliant on the value of a given cryptocurrency increasing and, perhaps more worrying, ICOs are not regulated in the way IPOs are. Aside from the fact that some ICOs are out-and-out scams, many people believe that the cryptocurrency bubble is just that -- a currently growing bubble that will eventually pop, leading many people to lose out.
Bitcoin - high latency and transaction costs, organizationally dysfunctional*, most recognized and most accepted. If you are sending money or live in a country with unreliable banks use this.
Monero - if you are donating to Wikileaks (or doing something else you don't want the government seeing) use this and only use sites that exclusively use it.
Etherium - low transaction costs, fairly good acceptance, most convenient for day to day banking
Vertcoin - features, speed and a good development community, likely the next currency I will support
Proof of stake currencies???
One day a crypto coin will replace a good chunk of M2 (currently 30 Trillion USD). It won't be bitcoin, it may not be a coin that exists today.
Disclaimer - At any given time I may hold some or all of the above currencies.
*I'm not saying Bitcoin supporters or devs are dysfunctional. I'm saying the process that is required to add a new feature is dysfunctional.