It looks like Ethereum has exploded in popularity and people are crazy now to invest in all sorts of crazy ICO's. It looks like the first layer investments are going out of popularity, mainly the basic cryptocurrencies, and everyone is now investing in 2nd layer applications, like smart contracts hosted on, or dependent of, other cryptocurrencies.

Best examples of these are:

• Ethereum (with their ICO's)
• Bitcoin (with things like Counterparty or Omni depending on it)
• Omni (where you have famously Synereo(AMP) hosted on it)

So there are layers upon layers interconnected of course, and the hottest ones are in ETH right now with a few exceptions.

The problem is that while these ICO's are really useful, a large part of them are crap, just like with the legacy cryptocurrencies. I mean nobody cares about Avatarcoin or Powercoin, it's mostly the first 2 pages on Coinmarketcap that matter.

The same way, many ICO's in ETH will be irrelevant, useless copycats or even scams. So be careful when investing in them, there will be many scam attempts or unsafe contract codes that could lock away your money forever.

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Choosing the good ICO's:

Well you can see the current ICO's advertised everywhere:

• https://coinmarketcap.com
• https://etherscan.io

But you can track most of them here:

• https://etherscan.io/tokens

Most of them will be advertised heavily while others will be lurking in the dark just bursting out in price rapidly out of nowhere, so many coins that are not heavily advertised are a good opportunity in my opinion.

Let me just go through all those tokens displayed on Etherscan and share my opinions:

• GOLEM: Decentralized market for computing power. Not interested, market cap too high, not sure what it's purpose is, and even if it's good, I think the train already left. I only look for high ROI investments since they have a good Risk/Reward ratio.
• Gnosis (Gno): Not sure looks like some speculation market. I'd skip it for the reasons above, and instead would just use Augur, since it's better developed in my opinion.
• ICONOMI: Haven't researched it that well, market cap too high, not interested
• REP - Augur: I like Augur, it could become very big, like for sportsbetting now that Directbet.eu closed down in Bitcoin, this could be the 2nd best betting platform. It could grow huge, I have invested a little in this, but since the market cap is too high, I would not invest a lot right now. But if it were to retrace, I would put some money here. I think gambling oriented businesses are a sure investment.
• MKR - Maker: Not interested, especially after the DAO fiasco, I am not sure if I can trust DAO systems just yet.
• DGD - Digix Global: Too much counterparty risk. Centralized. Need to trust them for honest accounting. I would not risk money here. Many gold exchanges are scammers, where they issue 100x more IOU's than actual real gold they hold. So I am not saying DGD is untrustworthy, I am saying that given the track record of custodians, I am not comfortable investing in projects like these.
• SNT - Status Network: No clear source of income, I don't like investing in stuff where the income source is ambiguous. How is a messaging app will make money?
• Bat - Basic Attention Token: Sounds interesting, this could be a big one, but I haven't researched it yet.
• Bancor Network: Anything that has the name bank or banc in it is already not on my list, but seriously, I have no opinion, haven't researched it, and I am not sure I like ambiguous ideas like "standard for a new generation of cryptocurrencies".
• FirstBlood: Too cheesy name, I think Augur is better, no other opinion
• SNGLS - SingularDTV: No thanks, anything involving copyright and rights management is already out of question for me. First of all I don't see libertarians anarchists investing in this, and why would Hollywood studios invest in this either? Even if it grows, it would be like Ripple, but too uncertain future so anyway, not my gig.
• Aragon Network: Haven't looked into it. No opinion.
• Edgeless: I love this, I have invested in it, and already made big profit. I think this one has a great future.
• Melon: Sounds like a copy cat of Bancor or the other way around, anyway, again too ambiguous...
• RLC - iEx.ec: Sounds like a copy cat of Golem...
• Wings: Sounds like a copy cat of DAO, MKR and others...
• Storj: This is actually a good token, but I am not sure if the monetization works properly yet. Also not sure who will use this when places like Google gives you already many GB of space for free. But it could be useful for corporations once they figure it out in the future. But I don't see profit in it just yet, so I might invest in it later.
• vSlice: I like this, it's like EDG but it's good to hedge the bets, so putting some money here is also a good idea.
• Xaurum: Same problems with the DGD - Digix Global, the counterparty risk is too high, centralized,etc...
• Tokencard - Monolith: Regulatory problems, too complex legal framework, and too big risk. Not their fault, but Governments probably don't like crypto projects that involve fiat cash and anonymous users. Not to mention debit card ideas, so I would not put money here. If they succeed, good for them, but for me this is too much risk.
• Trustcoin - WeTrust: Too many scammers in lending, I mean the users of this platform could be scammers just like tons of scammers and Defaulters are on BTCJam, also governments are trying to regulate lending, so I am not sure how this works out.
• Taas Fund: If it has the words "fund" in it, that implies centralization, not sure about this, and not interested.
• Guppy - Matchpool: It could be a good idea, but I think it's poorly executed. I mean social media is good and if this is like a matchmaking tool, then that could have effects. But I am not even sure about online dating itself, there are many scammers there in general, I am not sure who uses online dating to find a girlfriend, I never did, so it's not my gig simply because I don't understand their businessmodel, but otherwise it could be good.
• Bcap - Blockchain Capital: Again I am not interested in "funds". If I want to invest in funds, I would just buy an ETF, in cryptocurrencies I am looking for something innovative...
• SWT - Swarm City: This could grow big, it looks like direct Agorism in action, but I haven't researched it that much, so no further opinions...
• TIME - ChronoBank: Complete nonsense. Looks like some Marxist stupidity, these people haven't heard of the subjective value theory. They think that somebody digging a hole in the desert all day has the same value than a surgeon saving lives all day, just because labor should be quantified in time. Complete Communist nonsense, these people should read some Ludwig von Mises and learn how markets work.
• Pluton - Plutus.it: Not interested.
• Lunyr: Not interested.
• TheDAO: Hahaha , crap!

So I haven’t researched all of them, but those that I did, I have strong opinions about those, those that I didn’t, I felt like they are not even worth looking into, with a few exceptions that I have to analyze better.

I also like to invest based on ideology, so I favor anarchist/libertarian projects more. So I am not going to invest in Bankstercoin 2.0, or things like that. Or Copyrightcoin 2.0. Or Governmentcoin 2.0….

I believe I am morally consistent, therefore any project that follows the same morality, would therefore become successful, because I think a voluntary society is the best and most productive system that humanity can achieve, therefore projects that promote that will probably make the most returns as well.

Both making money and spreading freedom is what this is about. So I am especially interested in things like Swarmcity, although I haven’t had time to research it, but it would look like it could directly bypass Government, and create a sort of barter economy, which is very very very much needed.

Other than that there is nothing wrong with making some money so projects that have a clear cashflow are very interesting as well. Just some passive income so that people can retire in their 20’s or 30’s, and then spent the rest of their lives doing things they like. I like concepts like those.

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Conclusion

So in conclusion, it looks like ETH has introduced a new phase of innovation into cryptocurrencies and more are to follow, so I have already invested in many of these, I would not miss out this opportunity, a lot of money can be made, but people have to be careful, many of these could turn out to be scams, so I would split up my portfolio into many smaller investments especially in copycats.

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Disclaimer: The information provided on this page might be incorrect. I am not responsible if you lose money using the information on this page! This is not an investment advice, just my opinion and analysis for educational or entertainment purposes.

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Sources:

• https://pixabay.com
• https://etherscan.io/tokens
• ETH logo courtesy of Ethereum Foundation with CC BY 3.0 license

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