Hello everyone,
Since i have been wandering on the crypto world, i have been looking at the ICOs phenomenon, and what a fertile ground this is for Scams.
While planning my posts around here on Steemit i remembered about on specific ICO i came around, that is Called OTN (Open Trade Network). Like all ICOs, looks good on the paper, but we never know if it will actually do something.
26 days ago, i posted on their reddit the topic that i am reproducing here, so i could gather your opinioin about this "ICO that is not an ICO".
Let me know what you guys, that have more experience in cryptos than me thinks about it.
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I just found out these days about OTN, and all in all, its a really good idea, and i see that it have potential, but lets talk about how things work.
First of all, there are 1000+ alt coins running around plus a lot more ICOs and similars like OTN on the field. Its a crazy number, and a few years from now, 99% of them will die. Thats a fact. As i see, the ones that survive will be the ones that can do something useful on the real world economy. Wich ones? no one knows. Its all a huge gamble at this point. So, lets start with the positive things...
1 - No more exchanges hostages
The idea behind the OTN is a very solid one, since as you can all see, the existence of the exchanges go against one of the principles of the Cryptocoins: Decentralization. The exchanges where you trade your coins holds on their wallets a big chunk of the circulating currencies, and even if the exchange have a good reputation, there is nothing that stops them to close the doors overnight and keep all the clients coins. (This would probably collapse the coin markets, but yes, it is possible).
2 - Reduced fees
If something like the idea of the OTN works the right way, that would mean the start of the end of the exchanges, or at least their exorbitant fees (come on... 0,02 BTC to withdraw, when the average network fee is 0,00014?) If what i read about the project is right, there would be no central exchange in place, and all the transactions would be processed by the "forgers" (Somebody correct me if im wrong, but this would work in a proof-of-stake system), and the fee of processing transactions would reduce a lot, since it would use less power and there wouldnt be more than one transaction in place (Today, you have a transaction fee to transfer from your wallet to the Exchange, another to make the trade, and another to transfer back to you personal wallet)
3 - Decrease of difficulty to buy and sell Cryptos (and products)
IF (and only if) the OTN system make it possible to buy the currencies with fiat, it seems this would make the process pretty easy, and with that, increase the possibility of the cryptos be accepted by people outside the financial world Cause in the long term, if the general population do not recognize the cryptos as actual useful money, they will die.
Now now, its time to go through the shady and weird things...
Starting with Distribution
So there will be 3 ways of distribution of the coin:
A - IQoption trades
B - Wallet Owners
C - To whoever have coins
B and C seems ok to me, since they wont cost anything (unless they charge for the wallet), and will reward early adopters and enthusiasts.
But the problem is the A... At first glance, the idea seems good. You do your normal trade operations, and in the mean time you get a reward fo using and specific plataform. Something like a milleage program.
But here is the catch: the fee to trade Cryptos on IQoption, that are actually CFDs, since you dont buy any coins, is now 10%. That means that any trade you do, you already lost 10%, no matter the outcome. Not including the absurd Spreads (US$ 30,00 on BTC at the moment of this writing).
Nowhere on the market you will find a broker or exchange that have this fee, or this spread.
Now lets do some math (The prices is in BRL, cause that is what i used to test):
I put buy order (IQOption you only buy at market price) of $19,80.
IQoption Charge me $1,84 (10% fee) for the transaction, and reward me with and estimate of 0,048 OTN Tokens (wich will go down till the day they give the coins).
If i trade this for 0,048 OTN to bitcoins then to $ i would recieve $ 3,07. Well, there is no fees on this math, but lets say i would pay the absurd 10% iq option charges, i would still keep around $2,70 Good payout right? im actually recieving to trade... But here is two scenarios that might happen:
- At each week, the amount of the coins distributed will decrease. The supposed profit of the operation i did wont last long, and IQoption will probably keep the 10% fee, (maybe after week 20 or 30, time enough for the hype bring in everyone that dont do the profit math). BTW the usual fee per operation on the Crypto exchanges that i know is around 0,25%. And this would answer the question why they are "giving" the coins, and not selling them.
- Im recieving something that doesnt exist yet, and its all on the speculative market based on a promise that still dont have anything concrete. Not even the wallet. For all i now, if there is no market manipulation by IQoption or OTN.org, the market prices might come very close to zero, and boom! IQoption keep its 10% fees, and i get trades that could be a lot more profitable if i did them somewhere else (of a even bigger loss, if my trades went bad).
The other weird thing is: why IQOption?
There is a lot of exchanges around that could have a better impact on the Crypto community, and get a lot of attention around this first round of token distribution, even the ones that already trade OTN...
The answer i think is this: IQoption is the first thing you see when you start googling for the first time in your life 'how do i trade currencies'.
IQOption have a lot of ads running around everywhere related to the markets. This probably attract a lot of people that think it is easy to make money on the market. Easy is the key word here. And btw, IQOption isnt the most reputable broker around. You only have to go a few pages ahead on the google search to find a lot of controversy. And for the last, a few questions popped on my mind that i still dont have answers:
- A system like this could be a big blow on the exchanges market. Why in the end, they would support a system like this
- As i could see, the coin would work like a base value, wich the other coins would have a exchange rate. Assuming that the prices of the coins would keep on the rollercoaster, wouldnt this change the exchange by the minute, just like we have now? if the idea is to make easier to trade coins, wouldn´t the transaction fee fluctuate wildly?
- How is this different, on the final consumer side, from something like shapeshift or Changelly
- About the wallet, where would the coins be stored? on OTN Server? or locally?
- If they are stored locally, how would this be different from the wallets like Jaxx and Exodus that already have a Shapeshift service included in them?
- If i used the exchange feature of the wallet, would i need to buy the OTN to pay the transaction?
- In the transaction process, the way i understood, whoever have the most coins stored, would get most of the transaction fees? or the "forger" that would process the transaction is picked randomly?
Ooof.. thats a big one wall of text. Cant do a TL;DR because the devil is in the details... Please, lets have a unbiased discussion (im looking at you IQOption representative that answer all the posts here). This might be good. But might be a total trainwreck.
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And the aswers on the OTN reddit are pretty generic...
What you think about this? Total Scam, or maybe legit?