We’re building [random_product_name] and we will disrupt the [random_name] industry. — Every Founder Ever

In the past two years, I’ve seen the rise and fall of many promising projects, but even more: I’ve seen a growing amount of ideas and people making use of the distributed ledger technology to promote companies and projects that make no use of it.

The ICO number is booming and you cannot stop it. A great number of meaningful and not so meaningful companies emerge in the blockchain space and it’s amazing how this technology triggers people into building businesses.

If you want to have an elevator pitch, please say this out loud: I am building a distributed AI model capable of processing large amounts of data in order to forecast the way insurance policies should be built around the individual’s needs. or We are bringing mass adoption of crypto by offering to the non-banked individuals the opportunity to build economies in their local community.

Both of the above are random statements I can make up and just sound borderline smart. I got a real one I just saw on LinkedIn: Telemedicine & blockchain share a core philosophy: empowering patients. Crypto-economic incentives and AI secured by blockchains will redefine telemedicine.

Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) or, more common, Blockchain is one of the revolutionizing changes coming in the Tech Space. Unfortunately, like many others (e.g.: Big Data), it’s also a buzz word, overused and abused by business people in order to make their 100% traditional business sound bigger, more innovative and smarter than it actually is.

With every new payment token used solely inside of a platform, and every Ponzi scheme built on the blockchain, I gradually feel the need to publish reviews on their SCAMcoins. I keep refusing customers who want to build:

platform-limited payment tokens (Ether seems to decrepit for them so they will use an ERC20/223 token)
another Taxi App on blockchain (because UBER, CleverTaxi, Taxify and co. are sooooo overrated);
a distributed peer-to-peer chat app (The beauty of slow messaging always makes me remember the good old days of writing letters);
a hybrid exchange (somehow a sad combination between a CEX and a DEX using smart words just to make fools invest).

Worse than the people trying to convince us in building their out-of-this-world ideas are those supporting them. When choosing between morality and money, sometimes the latter trumps the former and “innovative economic models” emerge or ICOs are used as an excuse to save otherwise almost dead businesses.

Today’s rant comes from seeing 20-year-olds with no understanding of technology whatsoever holding classes about Blockchain and Crypto-trading techniques. I have my phone ringing from people offering me a 30% guaranteed to win if I start investing a minimum of $50,000.00 in their trading platform and other bla blas. For those more gullible, this comes as a ONE IN A LIFETIME opportunity. For the rest of us, another SCAM.