Statistically you run the risk of being terminally injured once in every 1.2 million flights. Clearly you may not then get the chance to try the next 1.2 million. Contrast this to the likelihood of death by car crash, with fatal injury being 1 in 5,000. We can view these as failures of the system, but most of us are willing to take the chance anyway.
Pharma companies play another numbers game, spending vast sums on the research and development of drugs which may or may not hit the treatment jackpot. Their general failure rate is 90%, with some areas of research - such as treatments for Alzheimer's - reaching failure levels of 99.6%. And yet Big Pharma keeps on spending because the next Aspirin or Viagra may be in the pipeline.
Why are we looking at the failure rates for planes and medical drugs? Because I wanted to see if there was a context to view the failure of ICOs - and let's be realistic here, the numbers of ICOs failing doesn't make for a pretty picture. According to figures from Tokendata, of 902 ICOs so far this year, 142 failed at the ICO stage, while 276 crashed and burned within the first 4 months of the successful ICO. Bitcoin News confirms this with the 2017 failure rate running at 46%.
Would you fly with an airline which had only a 54% chance of landing safely?
You may say - quite rightly - that comparing airlines with ICOs is like comparing fish with bicycles. Fair point. So, let's examine the big brother of the ICO, the Initial Public Offering. In 2017, according to the Financial Times, a total of 17 IPOs failed, representing roughly USD 2.5 billion value. There were 167 IPOs floated, so the failure rate is just over 16%.
Conclusions: we’re a long way from curing Alzheimer's; if you want to go anywhere, it’s safer to travel by plane; and IPOs are a more sure investment than ICOs.
The question is why? Is it because a lot of our colleagues are incredibly gung-ho about blowing other people's money? Or do they acknowledge the dangers but think, “It can't / won't happen to me”?
Then again, perhaps it's down to the fundamentals of the whole design of an ICO - like a plane which the airline forgot to order engines for, or the Pharma company that ignores all the contra-indications for the new drug. Investing is always something of a risky business (“If you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen!”). But the numbers bear out the fact that we're all operating in an area where failure is routine, in a way which would be entirely unacceptable in almost any other industry.
It's a popular mantra in the tech and crypto world that “Failure makes me stronger.” It's often trotted out by people who call themselves serial entrepreneurs (which sometimes means serial bankrupts). We almost celebrate failure as a mark of how tough an entrepreneur really is, but perhaps we should pay a little more attention to also celebrating success.
Pharma companies play another numbers game, spending vast sums on the research and development of drugs which may or may not hit the treatment jackpot. Their general failure rate is 90%, with some areas of research - such as treatments for Alzheimer's - reaching failure levels of 99.6%. And yet Big Pharma keeps on spending because the next Aspirin or Viagra may be in the pipeline.
Ok, but what does this have to do with cryptocurrency?
Why are we looking at the failure rates for planes and medical drugs? Because I wanted to see if there was a context to view the failure of ICOs - and let's be realistic here, the numbers of ICOs failing doesn't make for a pretty picture. According to figures from Tokendata, of 902 ICOs so far this year, 142 failed at the ICO stage, while 276 crashed and burned within the first 4 months of the successful ICO. Bitcoin News confirms this with the 2017 failure rate running at 46%.
Would you fly with an airline which had only a 54% chance of landing safely?
You may say - quite rightly - that comparing airlines with ICOs is like comparing fish with bicycles. Fair point. So, let's examine the big brother of the ICO, the Initial Public Offering. In 2017, according to the Financial Times, a total of 17 IPOs failed, representing roughly USD 2.5 billion value. There were 167 IPOs floated, so the failure rate is just over 16%.
Conclusions: we’re a long way from curing Alzheimer's; if you want to go anywhere, it’s safer to travel by plane; and IPOs are a more sure investment than ICOs.
Why is this happening?
The question is why? Is it because a lot of our colleagues are incredibly gung-ho about blowing other people's money? Or do they acknowledge the dangers but think, “It can't / won't happen to me”?
Then again, perhaps it's down to the fundamentals of the whole design of an ICO - like a plane which the airline forgot to order engines for, or the Pharma company that ignores all the contra-indications for the new drug. Investing is always something of a risky business (“If you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen!”). But the numbers bear out the fact that we're all operating in an area where failure is routine, in a way which would be entirely unacceptable in almost any other industry.
It's a popular mantra in the tech and crypto world that “Failure makes me stronger.” It's often trotted out by people who call themselves serial entrepreneurs (which sometimes means serial bankrupts). We almost celebrate failure as a mark of how tough an entrepreneur really is, but perhaps we should pay a little more attention to also celebrating success.