[seibelj]

Having a coin is a marketing strategy - people get in early because they have the most to gain, and then they spread the word to all of their friends to use the service, and it grows from there. Plus early adopters are extremely crypto-focused and have different groups and contacts who would be your ideal customers. The coin is the marketing - it's as if a tiny SaaS made it super simple to sell equity to their first customers, even in tiny increments.

[vkou]

> Having a coin is a marketing strategy - people get in early because they have the most to gain, and then they spread the word to all of their friends to use the service, and it grows from there.

So do ponzi schemes. The early investors into them make money, and have a lot to gain by spreading the word to other people.

Investing into a growing ponzi scheme is a rational investment strategy. That's why people do it, and that's one of the reasons for why they are illegal.

As far as I can tell, the majority of interest in ICOs comes from people who are hoping to dump their investment onto a bigger fool. Ironically, the worse the ICO is as a business, the more fools will be interested in it, which makes those ICOs more attractive to invest in.

[NationalPark]

Do speculators make good product advocates? Seems like they have a pretty obvious conflict of interest.

[seibelj]

They shill your product endlessly. What's the conflict of interest? They market for you, as they have a vested financial reason to do so. I mean it's no more a conflict than anyone else promoting their investment.

[rodonn]

The US financial system does not allow or encourage people who "shill" for investments. We in fact have many protections and policies that limit your ability to solicit investment in unregistered securities, which is what virtually all ICOs are/were.

[GoblinSlayer]

Investments aren't always in money. They can be in a form of vendor lock-in. It eventually results in massive hidden losses nobody warned about, but shilling was above sky.

[NationalPark]

I mean that the subjects of their "marketing" might come to the conclusion that advocates are primarily interested in attracting more speculators rather than selling a product they genuinely think will help you.

[apetresc]

I think they meant a conflict with the person they're advocating to, not advocating for.