The Big Difference Between ICOs and SP Delegation

I've seen recently a couple of posts warning us about an inflation of projects promising a lot on Steem, and few delivering on their promises, all while asking for STEEM or STEEM POWER to fund themselves.

It is true, when it comes to STEEM or SBD, one has to be extra careful where he or she invests or spends it. That's because once spent, and if you don't receive immediately something in return, but only a promise of something delivered in the future, and no history of that being done previously, then you place your faith in the project, maybe the team behind it or the spectacular roadmap.

But it's not very different from ICOs from this point of view, because the project receives funding and then they should deliver. And we know how few ICOs delivered.

If you actually receive something for your STEEM/SBD, like perks in a game, or for gamblers, the chance to win more (at a high risk), or maybe some physical goods like mugs and t-shirts promoting a business or custom made, then you receive your product or service and the business can fund their development further. It's different than trusting your funds to a project based only on the roadmap, especially if the team behind it has nothing to show for yet, or they are unknown.

Then, we have SP delegation.

Compared to ICOs, the big difference SP delegation brings in, is that it is not final. The delegator does not part from his funds or his stake, when he/she delegates, all while the delegated stake works for the delegatee until the delegator decides to remove it.

This is a benefit to delegators (the stakeholders/investors), but not particularly to businesses, because they often need to continuously entice delegators to keep their delegations.

On the other hand, someone is probably more likely to offer a delegation than liquid funds, so chances to get funded quickly probably rise via delegation. This is also because there are more STEEM powered up than there are liquid, and delegation is a facile way to put your stake to work.

But at the same time the concentration of SP on the accounts of major projects (not necessarily bid bots) probably hurts content discovery, as less people or with less stake are (manually) curating.

From the business perspective, it's obvious having a lot of money upfront removes a lot of obstacles. That's ICOs. But from the investor's point of view, that proved to be a failing path.

SP delegation is quite good, maybe even great for investors, but not so amazing for businesses, at least not on its own. Combined with another revenue stream, it can be really powerful for businesses too.