I’m not an ICO (Initial Coin Offering) type of investor. Really, I’m not… As a matter of fact, as of late, I started to hate this irrational ICO hype. The Bancor or Status ICO made me sick to my stomach… not to mention what should have been the OmiseGo ICO (in the end, it turned out to be a black-boxed opaque crowdfunding).
Yet I get it… the teams behind these ICOs aren’t at fault, WE ACTUALLY ARE! We who start sending transactions hours before the actual ICO start, we who basically act like hackers trying to DDoS the Ethereum network because of… you know… FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). YES, we who missed out on an ICO and wait till the token hits the exchange and start rewarding the whales and the dumpers - who don’t even care in what they invest in – giving them crazy profits (just take a look at the BAT ICO fail and what happened afterwards on the exchanges with price surging to almost 10x the ICO price).
Yes, our irrational behavior is to blame, I get that. I like to think myself as a rational investor and before thinking of investing in anything I try to do a thorough research about that particular crypto-project. Maybe that is why I try to stay away as much as possible from all ICOs. Some of the ideas behind the ICOs are very interesting indeed but it’s a looong way from an idea to a functional system that adds value to the market. Just to throw out a number out there, 90% of startups fail in the fiat-based economy, according to a Fortune article several years old; I don’t really know the updated numbers as of 2017 but you get the picture. ICOs are made to fund startups and guess what? Most of those startups will fail unfortunately - @cryptoportfolio mentioned this in one of his YouTube videos a while back, you can see his video below - …it’s just the nature of the beast.
Maybe that is also why I don’t like to invest in ICOs, because I don’t like my odds. However, thus far, I DID invest in two ICOs I admit: one of them is HUMANIQ. The team behind Humaniq has a very interesting project that tries to help banking the unbanked in the third world. Praiseworthy no doubt but they still have a long way to do that (their ETH-based DAPP is coming soon by the way, should be very interesting to see how the project develops).
My second ICO investment was made earlier today: the project is called Primalbase.
For those who don’t know, Primalbase is where real estate meets the blockchain. OK, but what the heck does that mean? With the funds raised from the ICO that has just finished by the way, Primalbase wants to establish office hubs in five of the most attractive business destinations in the world: Amsterdam, Berlin, London, New York, and Singapore. If an investor bought 1 Primalbase Token or PBT, he would have full access to a shared aka hot office. If he has 4, he can use a separate office. The interesting proposition Primalbase is putting on the table is this: A PBT holder can be a tenant obviously and use an office from those five locations, a landlord (YES, you can rent the token for others to use using WAVES), and also more or less a ‘shareholder’ who can have a say in the project’s general direction.
So far, only the Amsterdam hub is open for business with Berlin coming up in September, London in December, and New York and Singapore in 2018. Bear in mind all those hubs will be giant SHARED workspaces (up to 2,000 sq meters) for freelancers and entrepreneurs. The idea of shared workspaces is not new, you can check established sites like WeWork to have a glimpse at the market.
So why did I choose to invest in Primalbase and not in some other project?
Did any of you invest in the project? Would you invest in it? Why and why not? Opinions are always welcomed in my blogs, especially coming from those who completely disagree with me. Let’s learn something from one another.
Cheers!
Florian G
P.S. This blog isn’t an investment recommendation nor paid by Primalbase. I am just a humble investor who decided to take some risks and endorse a project I really believe in, that’s it. Obviously, I may be absolutely wrong, nobody knows for sure, that’s how an ICO goes. Only time will tell.
Image Credits: Primalbase Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/primalbase/