Rules I use to evaluate ICO’s

An APP token is better if it has at least a few of these characteristics. The best ones have at least three of these six

1. The resource is “free” or perishable — in that if I don’t use it right now, it is wasted. Examples include: my wifi, my empty section of my hard drive, my un-used CPU space, my car at night… so that the cost we can offer this service is effectively zero. Filecoin being the best example recently

2. The product is useful for current blockchain use cases (Gambling, speculation, risk management, intl payments and technology resource consumption)

3. A distributed system is fundamentally better or lower cost than a centralized system (rare given how expensive decentralized computing is today). Pryze is a great example of this as it replaces marketing consultants and expensive escrow services

4. Kickstart a network effect (chicken and egg issues) through over-paying initial users in token. That network effect then makes it harder for competitors to enter because your service has liquidity and more value due to having more nodes offering the service. Brave’s browser strategy did this by paying both sides to participate

5. In order to participate in the ICO I must become a customer/vendor and thus create network value. Civic did this one beautifully

6. The product can only be purchased with the Token. I’m tired of seeing products that offer a token as “one way to purchase” and let you purchase with US$ as well

Separately I try to evaluate the team via

• Their experience in the sector: the pedigree of the team (backgrounds and resumes), the quality of the engineering talent, advisors and investors

• The white paper: depth of thinking, current state of the tech and my estimate of time to market (very few are ready to launch in the next 12 months)