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RE: Polymath | A Complete JOKE ... But a Strong BUY

The one part I prefer about more traditional fundraising is that even though it's a pain in the ass, at least it forces people to dedicate their lives to a project for a while - some real "sweat equity" - before being able to raise a dime. The ICO model is broken - and while Polymath may not technically be an "ICO," they basically created money out of thin air like everyone else has by pre-selling then launching the token and creating a multi-hundred million dollar asset out of very little on a technical front (check their Github).

Of course, this commentary is NOT limited to Polymath - it is true of many ICOs, where the creators often don't have the same level of sweat equity as a traditional start-up founder (or in this case, the sweat equity is all spent on privately raising capital, marketing and beautiful conferences in the Bahamas). Part of what I love about guys like Vitalik is that they do have that sweat equity, so even if I don't always agree with him (or someone like him), I still respect him and his thoughts.

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The creators don't have (and don't really need to have) any amount of sweat equity in their projects because in this frothy environment, nobody even expects them to (which, I know, is stating the obvious) because, I feel, much of the equity flowing into these projects is pure short term speculation. So, from the creators point of view, they don't care about proving out the validity of their concept because they know they'll get the money they desire. From the "investor" point of view, they don't care (in aggregate) about the validity of the project either because they only want to ride a short term hype bubble to a quick 500%, then claim investor victory. This is a caustic situation for all involved and those who are not paying attention and get caught in the hype at the ATH for a particular project will pay dearly for this two-way moral hazard.