An ICO is an unregulated means of raising funds for a new cryptocurrency venture, usually used by startups to bypass the long and boring process in the capital-raising realms of banks or capitalists. In an ICO, part of the cryptocurrency is sold to early supporters of the project in exchange for legal tender or other cryptocurrencies, mostly Bitcoin.
A startup will present a whitepaper of what the propose project is all about, what space it is going to fill upon completion, how much money is needed, how much of the tokens will be kept by the pioneers. During the ICO, backer of the project will buy some of the distributed cryptos with fist or virtual currency. The tokens sold are similar to shares in a regular IPO. Most IPOs are capped and in situations where the minimum funds required is not gotten, the monies will be returned to the pioneers and the ICO deemed a failed one.
Early investors are motivated by the prospect of the coin becoming successful after lauch, which would translate to a higher value than what they got it for. An example of a successful ICO project that was profitable to early investors is Etherium with Ethers as its coin tokens. In 2014, the Ethereum project was announced and its ICO raised $18 million in Bitcoins or $0.40 per Ether. The project went live in 2015 and in 2016 had an ether value that went up as high as $14 with a market capitalization of over $1 billion.
I believe this little information should get you excited about this new opportunity to hit it big. You can check out ICO calendars to know when ICOs will be coming up. Some projects are pure trash so research and do you homework before you invest. Exercise EDD – Enhanced Due Diligence always. If you missed the early days of Bitcoin, here is another opportunity.
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