Initial Coin Offerings started in July 2013 for the first time when Mastercoin started first token sale of its tokens which were based on ethereum blockchain.
They raised $2.3 million in 12 hours which accounted for a total of 3700 bitcoins at that time.
Initial Coin Offering is a means of crowdfunding mainly revolving around cryptocurrency which has became the source of raising capital for the start-up companies.
ICO's have been the controversial means of business and some countries like China and South Korea have banned raising capital through initial coin offerings.
With a huge number of ICO's running at the moment, it is very hard to choose a right ICO and invest in it.
There have been a lot of scams lately but if you choose the right ICO, the returns could be life changing.
Some of you might be aware of the fact that some people have made millions of dollars by investing in the ICO's, and when I say ICO's, I mean the right ones.
I have personally invested in three ICO's till date and returns were huge with the least successful ICO giving a 4x return.
You also need to be aware of the fact that you might also loose your capital if the ICO you invested in turns out to be a scam.
How to choose the genuine ICO!
There are a number of ways to know whether an ICO is is genuine or not:
- Read the whitepaper carefully
Whitepaper is the face of every ICO or cryptocurrency.
If should be well written and whitepaper itself should be compelling enough to attract the investors to invest in the product.
- Know the team
It is very important to know the people behind the project because the team plays a huge role in the success of an ICO.
Look at the team members and their public profiles and see if they are active or not.
The most important thing to know about the team is their expertise in the field.
- Know the concept
Dig deep to know what is the concept of the company and what they are trying to accomplish.
Go for the concepts which are new and which you think will add value to the world and solve real world problems.
- Marketing
See if the company is doing enough promotions for their product as marketing plays a huge role in the success of any concept.
- Technology
You can also evaluate the technology by knowing if they actually have the "proof of concept".
Proof of concept is really important as you will be aware of what they are trying to achieve.
These are some of the precautions you might need to take before investing in an ICO.
I am currently invested in one ICO.
I wrote that the ICO's which are here to solve a real world problem can be a huge success.
SPHERE is here to solve a real world problem associated with social networking.
Now for those of you who are not aware about the problems associated with social networking, let me tell you that there are a number of them which include the data insecurity, no privacy as your private chats are accessibleand they need to be tackled and sphere is here only to replace the outdated centralised system of social networking.
What is Sphere
Sphere is a next generation decentralised social network which is different from the centralised ones.
Sphere provides you with data security, transparency and the privacy and believes that every user should be compensated a portion of the data he/she spends on their network.
There are other centralised social networks which are indeed very popular and make billions of dollars from our data and enjoy the profits without giving anything in return, not even the much needed privacy.
Sphere aims to give power back to the people.
With every click and with every social interaction done on sphere, we take the profits.
They have a working model in the form of a mobile application for both android and ios whose download link can be found at the end of this post.
Sphere is not only the solution for the users but also for the advertisers who want to promote their businesses by creating ads on different platforms.
The advertisers pay a huge amount for advertising their products because the advertising is not efficient on centralised websites.
Sphere will ensure that the advertisement created by the advertisers reach the right audience.
The advertisers pay only for the clicks on their advertisements.
Sphere has a great marketplace and you can make purchases using SAT tokens also.
SAT TOKENS
SAT tokens will be used by sphere to facilitate the transactions within the sphere network.
They are also tradable as you can convert them into any cryptocurrency or you can also convert them into cash as well.
1 SAT token is valued at $0.14 and there is some bonus also.
If you are thinking to be a part of the ICO and get some SAT tokens under your belt, this is the best time to get in.
ICO Timeline
Source
You can participate in the token sale click here.
Sphere has also got positive response from various ICO reviewing websites.
You can also join with my referral link and get 20 SAT tokens for free when you sign up by clicking here.
Click here to down sphere app for android.
Click here to download sphere app for iPhone.
All the images whose source isn't mentioned have been taken from pixabay.
Disclaimer
I am not a financial advisor or an expert on financial matters and i am not telling you where to invest your money, it's just my personal opinion and what I think.