Tokens on ICO are ten times more expensive, and the Central Bank of the Russian Federation warns of danger

For several years, the cost of Bitcoin has been growing in accordance with Moore's law: its price roughly doubles every eight months. Under the conditions of a guaranteed shortage of supply, growth may continue for some time. Against this background, another interesting phenomenon appeared - the initial placement of cryptocurrencies or tokens (ICO, initial offering), which became a real mania on the financial markets, writes The Wall Street Journal (translation of the Vedomosti newspaper). It can be compared with the dot-com boom, when Internet company stocks also grew by leaps and bounds. Many got rich on this, but most just lost their money when the bubble burst.



Now the statistics is really amazing: according to CoinDesk, about $ 1.5 billion were attracted through ICO this year, and according to Smith & Crown, when the cost of tokens increased, they showed an average increase of 28 times . For example, Voise music platform tokens went up 453 times from June to August 2017, and Etheroll coins rose from $ 0.06 to $ 165, and then fell to $ 4.15.



ICO is something between an initial public offering (IPO) and crowdfunding. The golden cryptolife has spread to Russia: spontaneous meetings of investors and startups are taking place all over the country, who dream of getting on the ICO quickly and collecting a lot of money for their project. Something similar was on the WebMoney exchange, where companies offered "virtual shares" of their start-ups and even paid dividends on them. The cost of some "shares" soared several times, but often the investment stories ended very sadly.



Among ICO, the share of unsuccessful startups is about 40%. According to Smith & Crown statistics, more than 100 placements were made in 2017, while in 10% of cases the cost of tokens decreased, and for 30% there was no trade in tokens. One of the unsuccessful placements is the Estonian cryptocurrency Internet bank Polybius, which attracted $ 32 million, but its coins fell by 24%. However, for the entrepreneurs themselves, this is not a very critical factor, because they have already raised the money - it's done. Price fluctuations in the short term, they are not too worried.



In addition, most ICOs remain successful, and the cost of tokens increases many times due to the large amount of money in the market. Many people joined the “golden cryptoluch”, and thanks to this almost any tokens practically guaranteed growth after being placed. This is a unique situation when large masses of the population are “stupefied” with the possibility of rapid enrichment. And when such mania encompasses large masses, then the ideas really come to life. Ideas become material, in full accordance with the theses of the classics. Naturally, businessmen cannot miss such a unique opportunity - and they strive to attract investments more quickly, until the general “insanity” is over.



The Wall Street Journal writes that investment in ICO attracts the attention of both professional investors and ordinary citizens. The newspaper cites the example of Chicago-based entrepreneur Mike Bardy, who began investing in cryptocurrency in the summer of 2016, and has now turned his $ 80,000 into several million dollars.



In fact, there are dozens of such stories. On US federal TV channels, there have been repeated reports about a “digital miracle” called Bitcoin, thanks to which ordinary American hard workers have several times increased their savings. For example, recently on the channel NBC talked about a 39-year-old worker from a metallurgical plant, who invested $ 1600 in Bitcoins, and now they cost $ 20,000. Now he talks about the unique investment in cryptocurrency by other workers in the plant. He says: "This is how to buy Apple shares at 10 cents." In the same report, the school bus driver was shown, who also got rich by investing a couple of thousand dollars in cryptocurrency, and now his entire family, including his grandmother, is also investing in Bitcoin.



In a report, CNBC talked about the increased popularity of retirement accounts linked to bitcoins (for example, Bitcoin IRA offers such): their incomes have already exceeded a million dollars a day. With all this money, bitcoins are purchased to save for retirement.



In Russia, mania has not yet reached such proportions as in the United States. At least, workers from factories and retirees do not want to buy bitcoins immediately for their entire salary and retirement. That's when we see this - probably, we can say that the price of Bitcoin has reached its peak and the bubble has inflated to its maximum size.



Sensible people may assume that growth will not last forever, and the “bubble” may burst just as it did in 1999 with shares of Internet companies, many of which turned into rubbish. By the way, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation warns about this, as it yesterday published a statement on cryptocurrencies on the official website.



The bank warns of the danger of investing in cryptocurrencies and reminds that “most operations with cryptocurrencies are carried out outside the legal regulation of both the Russian Federation and most other states”.



Most importantly, the Bank of Russia officially announced that it is not going to allow legal trading in cryptocurrencies and derivative instruments (tokens) in Russia.





Earlier, the head of the State Duma Committee on Financial Market and the Association "Russia", Anatoly Aksakov, said that the State Duma could adopt a law on the regulation of cryptocurrency in the fall. In the near future this topic will be discussed by a special working group of the State Duma.