As the old saying goes, a fool and his money are easily parted, this being most evident with the proliferation of ICO's which seem to have blinded people from reality. Investors are throwing money at these schemes with gay abandon, believing the hype that they will make fortunes overnight. Despite all of the negative publicity even from the SEC itself, it still goes on. A prime example of crowd mentality, with all of the world's snake oil salesmen descending upon the Crypto Space to tell the insatiable mob what they want to hear.
But there is more to the story. When we entered crypto in 2012, the first early adopters were beginning to appear. We realised then that this was something that could change the world. A digital currency can be used for remittances, it can get a farmer in India or Africa connected to the real world and can give those with no access to regular banking, an opportunity to be part of the future. These are but a few examples of many possibilities.
But look at the price of Bitcoin! It recently soared to $20,000 but now the naysayers are so happy to tell us that it has "crashed". This "low" is actually 8 times higher than it was a year ago. Talk about dis-information. So why is BTC holding at this price point? There was the wave of increased adoption thanks to the mass media which saw the need to report on crypto. Also, there was big money entering the industry, including Wall Street firms, hedge-funds, VC's and those people who had just been lucky and invested early.
But the media still loves to report the "Bitcoin just died" story, with a new all time high of 300 death reports recently achieved.
Now, back to the subject of ICO's again. So many new companies and start-ups have discovered that ICO's can now raise money. Just call it "we do something on the blockchain", copy a whitepaper or, if you can, hire someone who actually knows how to write one and you are like gold. Raise 25 million, 300 million or even a couple of billions and maybe even partially launch a product if you can actually bring something close to reality. After all, you have a shitload of money now. Make some cool videos, some speeches at bitcoin meetups, ignore real questions as you are just the marketing guy and forge ahead with the next big money maker in crypto.
But what some people have really not taken into account is that, whilst the whitepapers might sound good, can they actually deliver what has been promised? Just simply launching an ERC20 coin and spouting a lot of superlatives about the future, is not what makes the world go round! Most deliver zero and this makes the industry a laughing stock and gives it a bad name. But now is the time to separate those products which just have good PR and concentrate on those which are real…the ones which can change the world.
Bitcoin is one of these products which doesn't ride on PR. Sure, the pizza guy was and still is great PR, but all he wanted to do was to order 2 pizzas! It's this kind of story which today still gives the wow factor to the bitcoin world. The twins who were lucky, the early adopters who created a casino and sold it for a hell of lot of money, the exchange guys who went to prison because of "money laundering" a commodity and the guy who threw away his hard drive.
We needed to mention good PR because this is one of the major problems! Most ICO's raise money and spend money to push PR for a product they never deliver or they just develop a below-standard product. Yet they have great PR, but they can only raise the price and not the bar when it comes to crypto.
Nothing really has changed since 2012, except for the false promises and the expectation of getting rich quick. Here is a spoiler alert: it's not the day traders, (don't get us wrong, they have made a killing or two) it's those who believed in crypto early, the hodlrs, the ones who support start-ups and help getting real products out. These are now the real winners in the crypto world. They never just did it for the money, but to support good products, help them grow and achieve adoption.
This industry is not driven at a time when mass adoption exists. When crypto companies need to handle support tickets from thousands of newcomers every day, they have no time to innovate and push the industry ahead. When it is a bear market, the time when nothing happens to the price and bitcoin hears the news that it has just died again, that's the time these industries have the opportunity to innovate and plant the seeds for the next big mass adoption.
Two of the most promising products and start-ups in crypto have been overlooked for quite some time. But we believe these are winners when compared to the PR driven ICO products.
The first one is Ark.
The main problem with Ark is not just its PR, but the fact that most people have no idea what Ark actually does or what it wants to achieve.
Go to the website and have a look. But let us explain why we think this can and probably will be one of the major success stories in crypto.
Remember when websites were expensive and you needed to hire a programmer and a designer to make that stunning website of yours? If you wanted to add some features, that cost even more! Then templates came along and it was a little better. Following that came dreamweaver which allowed those out there who are not programmers to buy an expensive product and make a website for themselves. Then, the internet was changed forever with the advent of wordpress. It was easy to get your own website up and maintain it.
This is Ark! The wordpress of crypto! We understand Ethereum has an easy way to do your own ERC20 tokens on eth…but what if you could do this with just a few clicks?! You have your own bar or restaurant and feel you would like to have your own token, maybe as a reward program or maybe as a membership option. You just make a few clicks and have your own ark based token! This is what will bring easy mass adoption to the people. But you cannot get this information by just looking at the ark website! Still, it is one of the most overlooked projects, coming with great tech, a superb community with friendly people and a potential home-run when it comes to picking a winner!
Here are some useful links to the social media groups, websites and exchanges where ark can be traded:
Web: https://ark.io/
News: https://blog.ark.io/
Forum: https://forum.ark.io/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/arkecosystem
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ArkEcosystem
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpc2k6zOOutGT9y56urDClg
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/arkecosystem
Github: https://github.com/ArkEcosystem
Exchanges:
Bittrex: https://bittrex.com/Market/Index?MarketName=BTC-ARK
Binance: https://www.binance.com/trade.html?symbol=ARK_BTC
OkEx: https://www.okex.com/?forward=%2Fspot%2Ftrade%2Findex.do#symbol=ark_btc
Coss.io: https://exchange.coss.io/pair/ark-btc
Cryptopia: https://www.cryptopia.co.nz/Exchange/?market=ARK_BTC
Bit-Z: https://bit-z.com/trade/ark_btc
UpBit: https://upbit.com/exchange?code=CRIX.UPBIT.BTC-ARK
LiteBit: https://www.litebit.eu/en/buy/ark
CoinSpot: https://www.coinspot.com.au/buy/ark
CryptoMate: https://cryptomate.co.uk/buy-ark/
CoinSwitch: https://www.coinswitch.co/exchange/btc/ark
SimpleSwap: https://www.simpleswap.io/
Another project which has been overlooked and lacks PR is Particl.
The focus is on something called dapps which are Decentralized Applications, with the first one being a decentralized marketplace. Particl is based on the newest bitcoin codebase, segwit from the start and a 2 party escrow protecting buyers and sellers which was envisioned by Satoshi in the original bitcoin whitepaper. Private transactions via CT (amounts not visible) is currently being tested in the alpha release. RingCT (sender and receiver details not visible) is planned for inclusion in the beta version coming out in a few weeks.
Moreover, the marketplace is not only powered by a great looking UI, but it also allows every crypto currency to be used. It could become the killer app Bitcoin was looking for. Every coin, regardless if it's Dash, Monero, Ethereum or Bitcoin; you name it and it can be used on the marketplace. More dapps are being planned and the foundation and team are not focusing on PR but actually on the product! It is all out of the box a great coin.
We are bullish on Ark and Part because the product is more important than the PR. So many ICO's will ultimately fail because PR alone will not carry them. Crypto has to be developed to be sexy looking and easy, not just to make quick bucks.
Here are some useful links to the social media groups, websites and exchanges where part can be traded:
Web: https://particl.io/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/particlproject
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Particl/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/particl
Github: https://github.com/particl
Riot: https://riot.im/app/#/room/#particl:matrix.org
Telegram: https://t.me/particlproject
Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/2tVJaZ9
Exchanges:
Bittrex: https://bittrex.com/Market/Index?MarketName=BTC-PART
Bit-Z: https://www.bit-z.com/trade/part_btc
Bocknet: https://blocknet.co/
ChainEx: https://chainex.io/market/PART/BTC
Coinswitch: https://coinswitch.co/
Indacoin: https://indacoin.com/en_DE/change/buy-particl-with-cardusd
SimpleSwap: https://www.simpleswap.io/
Litebit: https://www.litebit.eu/en/buy/particl
UpBit: https://upbit.com/exchange?code=CRIX.UPBIT.BTC-PART
Xchange.me: https://xchange.me/
Altcoin.io (Testnet): https://swap.altcoin.io/
