Sadly, tokens are not always securities and for the most part, they are utility tokens (so they don’t represent any percentage of the ownership of a company.) Tokens are not securities and basically you have no saying on the future of the company or any percentage of the revenue they collect. You are betting on a coin, based on the assumption that it will increase in value, because more people will be using it.
As hard as it may seem, that is the beginning and the end of a proper ICO evaluation. I see a ton of coins that are just a means of transactions, in a similar way that people transact using Bitcoin or Litecoin. There are hundreds of these coins, and all have their little extra special feature: but does the world really need ALL of these? I do not think so…
Basically, it all comes down to usability: the more people use a coin, the more it will need to be traded and thus, the supply and demand equation changes based on that factor (the demand factor.) The more people use the coin, technically, the higher it will go up. But what happens if people start abandoning some coins because they all just prefer using say Bitcoin cash? Amazon won’t start accepting any type of cryptocurrency, and it will settle (most likely) for just a couple, if it doesn’t even make its own coin. So how will the coins have any application if retail giants block them?
Basically, what’s the solution to this maze? Above and beyond the speculation (which is insane) realistically speaking, how can you best position yourself? Personally, I think by getting into cryptocurrencies that are the leaders in their niche. For pure financial transactions of any sort, there are gazillions of coins. But start going into niche related coins: grocery shopping, gaming, real estate, even solar. I mean just hedge your bets, and don’t go all in on something that looks like Bitcoin.
I’m still looking into some different niches (some of which I mentioned) but I have pretty much decided my winner for the real estate (home rentals) niche. Rentberry (currently an ICO and not traded on exchanges) is the only startup with an existing client base and a proven product, to help tenants and landlords manage their payments, communicate, sign contracts etc. Rentberry, seems to be the one that will be leading the pack when it homes to rental transactions.