If you are quite familiar with how ICO works, skip this post. This isn't written for you.
If you are new (some would say late) to this crazy cryptocurrency party and do not understand how these activities around the blockchain project crowdfunding work, then I hope this reminder can serve as a little notice for you when you try to invest your own money into a seemingly ambitious and visionary new project with enthusiasm.
This message is actually quite simple ...
ICO isn't really Initial Coin Offering.
What I mean is that ICO isn't really "Initial" Coin Offering, at least with most cases nowadays. A general practice for ICO is to first get some invited investment first, they can be PE, can be VC or even some celebrity who is going to endorse the project later. Then, there will be a pre-sale, which means if you can afford to invest a lot then you might be able to buy the tokens first with a cheaper rate before the general crowds swarm in.
So, only after all those above fund raising activities are executed, then comes the ICO, which is of course not initial in any ways!! Even you are an early participant in the ICO and hence get a good bonus rate, you are at best at the 3rd or 4th or 5th... coin offering.
This mistake actually comes from the fact that ICO gets its name from IPO - Initial Public Offering, illogically. People whoever invented this term replace the adjective Public with a noun Coin and the error was made. So ICO should really be Initial (Public) Coin Offering, just like IPO is actually Initial Public (Stock) Offering. Omitting the word Stock is reasonable because there isn't hardly anything similar that can do a public offering (yeah, when cryptocurrencies were not born yet), but omitting the word Public is actually quite a bad choice as later ICO/Token-crowdfunding evolves to be offered several times before it goes public.
ICO actually sounds more prestigious than it really is. You, as an early ordinary investor, should not be confused that before you, who deliberately mark your calendar to participate the first magical bonus hour(s) to send your BTC/ETH in the middle of the night, get to buy these magical tokens, they have been offered several times to others already.
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