ICOs short for Initial coin offerings are the latest fad in cryptocurrency communities, 1000s of companies have started their own coins lately and the total capital raised via ICO route now dwarfs venture capital - at $4 billion raised in just 2017. 2018 looks more exciting with more mainstream companies looking to raise money through this route.
The reason for going through ICOs is fairly easy to understand. You can raise money from every citizen of the globe not just your country, which was simply not possible before.
The regulatory burdens too are much smaller for ICOs in the current climate compared to IPOs, having said that SEC or regulators are taking a serious stance on ICOs going forward.
The revolutionary change that's triggered by ICOs is the fact the value of a ICO is not determined by the profits it makes in the future (DCF) but by the amount of capital the token locks in because of its various business use cases, this small detail makes a world of difference for Investing. Gone are the days when you had to worry about profitability of companies, all you need with ICOs is the platforms having wide enough reach.
Take the example of cashbit (https://ico.cashbet.com/?ref=a1f14b9884824dcd26e95c8a )an online gambling provider, they have decided to support only their home grown token cashbit coin on their platform (while doing this they have quietly dethroned the dollar), now because of this the valuation of cashbit coin is far more straightforward than valuing it the traditional way. All you need to look at is how popular is their platform and how many users are using their platform currently, it doesn't matter whether they cook their books to show up less profits to the IRS.
Because of near frictionless transactions between various cryptocurrencies /ICOs transferring value between various currencies is as easy a click.
Crypto exchanges like binance and kucoin have even launched their own coins and support them as first-class citizens within their platform all this means, companies can raise capital much faster, grow faster and have investors enjoy the returns quickly.
Tax implications however are very unappealing for the tax man, like I said before companies are no longer motivated to declare genuine profits only to get taxed on them, all they need to worry is how much value they can lock in their ecosystem. Low margin, high revenue businesses are the new darlings for the ICO investors.
The reason why I think ICOs are really revolutionary is because they give people real reasons for them to start understanding and using cryptocurrencies which will ushering in biggest revolution in modern financial history.