from Hacker News

Cryptocurrencies and ICOs with Patents

by gaetanrickter on 12/27/17, 2:55 PM with 4 comments

• by waytogo on 12/27/17, 3:15 PM

  Not sure if patents are the things crypto investors should look out for. Looking at the recommended ICOs/coins in the post I am not sure if they going to be good investments (reason: they are all utility tokens which are the riskiest because they have to survive long enough to service the dominant platforms).

  A helpful article which gives a good understanding of the different types of coins (currency, platform, utility) which again creates a solid foundation for any coin investment: https://hackernoon.com/mastering-shitcoins-the-poor-mans-gui...

• by mtgx on 12/27/17, 3:12 PM

  Sounds like a terrible idea, that I hope the cryptocurrency communities will reject. Also, why would anyone want to cryptocurrency companies to be "acquired"? Ideally, cryptocurrencies would all be run by foundations.

  I was just marveling recently at how nice it is that virtually all cryptocurrencies are open source and thinking that it must be part of a new generation of software where most of it is open source and money is made through other means (like funding through tokens and then continuing to benefit from the increased valuation of the project, which will presumably correlate with the project's progress).

• by thisisit on 12/27/17, 3:22 PM

  TL;dr version - (pending) Patents = value. Ergo, these ICOs are valuable.

  This obviously is a terrible idea. Pending patents (2/3 mentioned ICOs) can fall through.

  The only ICO which has a patent is not owned by the company. It is also a ML related patent nothing to do with cryptocurrency.

  The worst part is the author gives a checklist of things to consider but conveniently omits how the checklist applies to these ICOs.

• by DennisP on 12/27/17, 3:24 PM

  Historically, cryptographic algorithms encumbered by patents have failed to get wide adoption. I suspect the same will be true of cryptocurrencies.