 Okay, guys, what's up? So I'll be talking about ICOs. What is it? And is it a scam? So what is an ICO? Well, an ICO stands for this initial coin offering. You see, an ICO is similar to an IPO, which is an initial public offering, but a little bit different. I actually consider an ICO merger between like a Kickstarter model and the IPO model coming together. So Kickstarter model is like this, I have this drone idea and I want to build a drone in China. So I pre-sell my drone for like 600 bucks. I crowd-sale the money all around the world, and then I got money for my drone. With the ICO, it's like that, but you're not actually selling a physical product. You are giving away, you're not giving away, but you're offering either cryptocurrency or a token that represents the underlying protocol of your new blockchain startup. But the difference between the IPO, though, is this isn't on the stock exchange. This isn't run by securities and commissions, which I'll be getting into a second. To summarize, an ICO is a blockchain company that is offering its cryptocurrency or token to the general public around the world in exchange for other tokens or other cryptocurrencies. The most classical example or one of the most successful ICOs that kind of kicked this off was Ethereum. So about a couple of years ago, Vitalik created a white paper and they did their own ICO, which is said, hey guys, we are offering this Ether cryptocurrency in exchange for Bitcoin. So people all around the world that had Bitcoin, they sent in their Bitcoin, they bought a bunch of Ether, and that's how they supported Ether, and that's how Ether started. They offer their own cryptocurrency. That's what ICOs in general. It's a new form of crowdfunding startup, but much greater than that because the cryptocurrency or the token that represents that new blockchain startup is actually part of the initial protocol. So in Ethereum, you need Ether to run the Ethereum protocol. Without Ether, it collapses. Hence why many ICOs that don't have this type of protocol or don't actually need their token or crypto to be necessary part of their startup. In my mind, I won't touch them, tell you the truth. So I'll just keep it at that. So that's what an ICO is in a nutshell. I'll give you some other examples of successful ICOs. You got Augur, you got Golem, you got Blockchain Capital, you got Singular DTV, then you got Economy. Those are other ones. You can go check them out yourself. But there are some difficulties with ICOs. I'll tell you some difficulties. So number one is this. First of all, and I'm going to be getting into what do you look out for ICOs. So just if you keep on watching the video, there are some difficulties with ICOs. The first difficulty is this. Depending on what the ICOs offering, whether it's own cryptocurrency or token, there are a difference between those two. So either or whether they're offering a crypto or a token, the actual storage of that new crypto or token is difficult because most wallets or exchanges, which I don't recommend you keep your money on. So most wallets and exchanges don't offer support for that new crypto. So a bunch of these ICOs sometimes give you this weird convoluted method to store their crypto and tell you the truth. It's quite complicated. I myself have lost a bunch of tokens, I would say due to the fact of trying to store it because it just, it's horrible. So that's something to keep in mind. The actual storage of crypto, of the token into a new ICO is not the greatest. Next one, I want to focus on with ICOs are legalities. So for example, with Ethereum, it moved from Toronto to Switzerland. A lot of these ICOs, remember, they are not considered securities yet. They're not regulated yet. And so the issue is a lot of the securities commissions, whether the SEC, they're viewing as a liability. So most of these new ICOs are either going to Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong and some other places around the world. So keep that in mind too, is whether it's you, you want to start your own ICO or startup, or whether it's your investing one, keep in mind is where are they legally registered? Because most of these ICOs are actually going from a crypto to a fiat to pay for the development of the new startup they invested in. So finally moving into the important part of the video is should you invest in ICOs? I'm going to say this here, I'm not going to tell you what to invest in. I'm not going to give you any of my picks. I'm not a financial advisor. I'm not a trader. I don't trade. I don't like trading. I don't have time to trade. I'm the Warren Buffett model. I'm long-term investing. Set it, forget it, park it. Okay. I'm going to give you underlying fundamental principles when investing in anything and this applies to ICOs and startups and stocks, etc. This is what I look for. Okay. I have a system of five points. Number one, I look for a strong leader. Without a leader, nothing's going to get done. If we look at Ethereum, Vitalik's a strong leader. If we look at Bitcoin, even though it's a mythical leader, they're still Satoshi. If we look at successful brands such as Tesla, we got Elon Musk, Amazon, we got Jeff Bezos, Alibaba, we have Jack Ma. There has to be a leader that's the glue, that's the visionary that holds everybody together that people can look out up to and also for the leader to do PR. The leader needs to go around the world, talk about a startup, create the community around him, which leads me to my second point. It needs a strong team behind that. So without the team, the leader is nothing and you need a strong dev team, a strong marketing team, a strong biz dev team. And what's really important beyond the fact that you have different cogs of teams is the chemistry among the teams. So when I'm looking at whether it's a startup or a new ICO, I want to interview the team. I want to interview the leader. I want to see how they function together. I want to see the history of them. I want to know what they did in the past. I want to know what their failures were. I want to know what kind of human being they are. Remember, do not invest in technology, invest in human beings. Next, the community. And what I mean by community, I'm talking about the all-encompassing community around the world. What type of community are they nurturing or creating? Are they creating a forward-thinking, open, positive community that promotes development, that promotes growth, or the more closed-minded, maximalist community? So it's really important that this new ICO or this blockchain startup is nurturing a positive community that does good around the world, that promotes openness and that promotes the future awareness of this new technology and this new solution to the problem that they're solving. Next, are they solving a specific problem? Too many times I've read a million white papers, I've seen a bunch of blockchain startups and ICOs. My mind explodes. I have no idea what they're doing. I have no idea what problem they're solving. It's almost like I'm reading Mandarin or something or some Martian language is like, if you can't explain to me in one sentence or in an elevator exactly the problem you're solving, you will fail. Period. Because when it comes down to marketing, if you can't explain that to a regular person or as Einstein states, if you can't explain it to an eight-year-old, you're not a good teacher. It's really imperative that no matter what blockchain startup you start, that you can distill and dilute exactly what you're solving in one sentence. Just keep that in mind. And next one is timing the market. So this is something that you can't control. I've seen many great startups, many great teams, many great people who are great leaders. Unfortunately, the timing of their technology and idea is not yet ready or acceptable by the marketplace. So timing is something we can't control and it's hard to actually validate. And sometimes consider the X factor or the lucky factors. A lot of people consider themselves lucky because if they even came out two years later or earlier, they would have failed. So timing is key. And finally, I'll leave you with this, the tech, which honestly I'm not that big on the tech. I'm not really focusing on the tech because I'm not investing in the tech. I'm not investing in the nodes. I'm investing in human being, the core developers, the community, the leadership. I'm investing in the idea behind it, not the technology. Too many people pull emphasis and way and power on the technology. Technology is not going to grow by itself. So that's the last thing I'm investing. So there's my video for ICOs. I think if I to summarize an ICO is an excellent new opportunity for startups around the world to create cash flow for their business to pay for the development and also to add value back to their investors. Because with ICOs with tokens and cryptos, it becomes liquid. They can exchange it on the exchanges and actually add value and use it for other utilities. But I do want to state there are many scam ICOs out there. I won't name the scam ICOs out there. So I say be be aware. And what you learned today are the fundamentals. Forget about all this other stuff of trying to jump around the boat looking for one cent ICOs, the next 1000 ICOs. If you follow these fundamentals and all top VCs, all great investors, they follow this principle is what I just told you, strong leader, strong team together, strong community, solving a specific problem that it's really easy for somebody to understand timing in the market. And finally, lastly, tech. There you have it. What is an ICO or initial coin offering scam or no scam? It's a little bit of both. If you enjoyed this video, like always, leave a comment below this video. I want to know what your strategy is for investing in ICOs. And finally, if you want me to do another video, leave a suggestion below and I'll make sure I get to it. Have a great day, guys. Peace.