The ico market is transforming finance and for now ethereum dominates.

However there is often room for multiple crowd fundraising platforms. Who is best positioned for #2? It might be waves.

often 2-3 winners

In crowd lending prosper and lending club dominate. In crowd funding kickstarter and indiegogo. In icos I think there will be a couple winners. You need scale and networks effects. Everyone wants to be on the platform with the most users. If you are raising money you want to sell to the biggest possible pool to get the deal done quickest or at the highest valuation. A niche player might be able to win deals of a certain type(immutability?) but generally the rich get richer. However, there is room for more than one. Competition between the two players helps increase usability and keeps innovation alive. In icos there will likely be a couple platforms. Ethereum will be #1 but who will be #2?

Key Factors

Regulatory Home

Regulation is likely to play a large role. Regulation shot down prosper in its early days. Is regulations are important but also global regs. In crypto the location of the company is a powerful shield against regulatory crack down. US may have largest market but the incumbents also have he most to lose and could pressure regulators . A bar outside the us, at a striving country is likely better. A base in a country that wants to beat the us in fundraising (Russia, U.K., China, Swiss, Singapore is even better).

Ease of Use

The platform must be easy. Ethereum is not that easy yet. A differentiator can simply be ease of use. Bitshares real name logins and waves iOS ap give them a lead.

Focus

Ethereum is not optimized for icos. It wants to do much more. A currency focused on icos should have less chance of being distracted. Again bitshares and waves are better than etc here.

Consensus

I think this will prove important. Proof of work is good for many things but if investors are to store their coins somewhere while waiting for the next Ico I think you want proof of stake. You need to be paid to wait. It's like a money market in a stock trading account. Bitshares delegated proof of stake and etc proof of work are inferior to waves leasing proof of stake here.

Waves

Most likely #2 in my view. Russia connections and Eastern European base should help waves because it allows them to challenge their rival with a disruptive technology. Further these countries are cut out of current western capitalism model. Notice waves is already financing capital investments in Russia! It's clearly focused on icos and building all that's needed to support that vision. It's easy to use and on iOS. And leasing proof of stake allows you to earn a return while you research tokens.

Bitshares

A close second. Bitshares has focus, a great graphene blockchain and seems fairly easy to use but I think delegated proof of stake and it's us roots will hurt them. I am no expert here but it seems like many of the team are based in the us and could be shutdown by the government. Could emerge as number 3 in a 3 player oligopoly.

Ethereum Classic

This is je wost positioned for icos. It's so similar to eth why wouldn't you just use that one. It does have size (market cap) which is nice but it has no focus, it is proof of work (which is good for its other uses) which seems bad for an ico platform and it's not that easy to use. I like etc but think it's a better virtual machine than ico platform.

So What Do You Think?

I am a novice. This is not investment advice I am just wondering which platform will win. Why am I wrong? post and let me know!