ICO Analysis: iDice (ICE) Crypto Gambling Crowdsale - Should I invest in this?
The sale of SatoshiDICE in 2013 for a record-smashing 126,315 BTC ($315,787,500 USD in today’s prices) has paved the path for the swarm of crypto-currency based gambling products that are coming up in the market. But the most innovative of them appears to be iDice.
Being the world’s first ethereum-based mobile gambling app, it has definitely garnered much attention.
Where the opportunity?
Crypto gambling has been primarily directed towards desktop users, yet. However, iDice has ambitions to change the game and bring the ever-popular dice gambling to mobile platforms and if they do succeed, they’ll probably hold a big marketshare of the dice gambling market on mobile.
While it’s still in it’s beta version, iDice has been able to payout around $300,000 worth of payments to it’s users and that’s before it got any media attention for it’s ongoing ICO.
iDice Viability Assesment
Given the house edge and the true decentralised nature, all bets and their results are publicily visible and the returns for iDice and it’s investors will always be in the green.
While it is common knowledge among the data experts, it might come as a surprise to you that the 50-60% of the transactions done on the blockchain are for gambling purposes.The users do not have to register or deposit any value to use the app. Instead, you can diretly add ether from your own wallet and any winnings will be automatically sent to your wallet via smart contracts.
My Verdict
There will be a lot of new players in the market following the success of iDice’s crowdsale success and with better upgrades/gambling apps there will be better opportunties to invest in the future.
However, given the house edge and the limit number of coins that will be in circulation, it is safe to say that you’re likely to make a profit on this ICO. Having said that, I wouldn’t bet the house on it.
I’ve invested just around 4-5% of my portfolio in this ICO just because I don’t want to lose out on the potential upside.
I’d give this opportunity a 6.8/10 in terms of potential upside and the risk-reward ratio.
where do you go to invest in the ico?
If you're using an exchange like poloniex, I'd suggest you first transfer your money to myEtherwallet and then you can follow the instructions given to invest in the ICO.
This is looking pretty ugly today...