ICOs are so hot right now! You gotta be careful not to get burned. Many subscribers have been asking for our thoughts on initial coin offerings (ICOs). We'll be writing some in-depth reports on individual cryptocurrencies in the near future.
For now, there's an upcoming ICO that we think looks promising. They just announced their token sale so we wanted to put together a quick overview for you guys. First, it's important to review what we examine to determine a good ICO project.
We like ICOs with the following:
- A clear description of its purpose and asset
- Unique network features
- Solves a problem in the market
- Good management team
- Transparent and fair distribution of ICO
- Sustainable incentives
- Infrastructure for an intuitive user experience
We analyze these features because we view ICOs as potentially paradigm-shifting services and as long-term investments. Not get-rich-quick vehicles. However, "hype" is not to be dismissed. Lots of people have and will continue to make million$ from ICOs based only on hype. Add hype to a legit project and you may strike it rich.
One ICO that we have been watching with interest is EOS.io. EOS is an open-source blockchain platform to enable vertical and horizontal scaling of decentralized applications. They recently announced that their token sale will start on June 26th.
The project is led by anarcho-capitalist cryptographer Dan Larimer (CTO) who is the co-founder of BitShares and Steem (both in top 20 blockchain assets with combined market cap of $1.2 billion). Larimer is joined by a team of visible and reputable leaders in the cryptocurrency space at Block.one like Brendan Blumer, Brock Pierce, Ian Grigg and others.
The core problem EOS aims to solve is instant scaleability of transaction volume. As many of you know, this has been an ongoing challenge for Bitcoin and more recently Ethereum. EOS utilizes an innovation called "parallel processing".
They write:
Parallel processing capabilities bring continuous scalability and a reliable high performance foundation for your applications. Existing single threaded capabilities force every application to share the capacity and performance of one single-threaded blockchain, create hard scaling limits, and eventually suffer from network congestion that may result in platform-wide downtime.
Block.one CEO Brendan Blumer explains further:
"Existing applications such as exchanges and social media already service millions of customers daily and require a platform that can process hundreds of thousands of transactions per second. With EOS, we are building software to allow businesses to build their applications using an architecture similar to modern website frameworks. This would allow a whole range of businesses to use the blockchain, similar to the way that the computing era exploded after Microsoft Windows enabled developers to build interoperable software," Blumer said in a press release announcing the project.
"Corporations that build applications on top of EOS can take advantage of the security, authenticity and transparency of the blockchain to build and support global-scale decentralized projects," he added.
The technology under EOS has already proven to handle 100,000 transactions per second (TPS). To give you an example of that advancement; Bitcoin can handle about 3 TSP and Ethereum can handle about 30 TSP.
Secondarily, a unique feature is users will interact with a familiar username/password interface, like Steemit, instead of complicated long public and private keys like all other cryptocurrencies. Steemit.com is a blockchain-based social blogging platform that pays you the cryptocurrency STEEM to participate.
The "public key" for your Steemit account is your handle. Your private key is your password. Yes, we were early enough at Steemit to snag the handle 
If EOS functions as intuitively as Steemit for users, it may have an advantage over other platforms to achieve the much coveted network effect.
WATCH Dan Larimer explain more about EOS in this presentation:
ICO Details
EOS appears committed to the ICO being fair and transparent. They aim for equal opportunity, broad distribution and transparency. Their website states:
Equal Opportunity
To ensure inclusivity, EOS Tokens have no pre-determined price; rather price is set by market demand. This mimics mining without giving potential unfair advantages to large purchasers.
Broad Distribution
The EOS Token distribution takes place over 341 days which is expected to provide ample time for the community to familiarize themselves with the project, as well as participate in the distribution.
Transparency
An Ethereum smart contract proves receipt of incoming funds for EOS Tokens.
Token Allocation Details
Below are the details of the token allocation. We suggested you read it carefully, twice.
There will be a total of 1 billion EOS tokens. 20 percent released in the first 5 days, 70 percent distributed in a market for the next year, 10 percent is reserved for development allocated over ten years. Not ideal, but significantly better than Bitcoin which has no incentive plan for continuous development built into it.
EOS suggests only using the wallets below to participate in the ICO:
MetaMask (Chrome browser addon)
Do not use exchanges.
US Citizens need a VPN: If you're in the US, EOS states "US-IP detected, participation not allowed". This is likely because they're based in the Cayman Islands and unfree Americans can't invest in certain tax shelters. Americans will need a VPN to participate.
Here's a screenflow of instructions from EOS:
If you're an American using a VPN, you'll have to fib a little and check the box claiming not to be a US slave.
Then EOS explains the token distribution details in more depth before continuing with instructions.
You can find video instructions to buy ICOs using MyEtherWallet below:
Official Resources
Website
White Paper
Steemit Blog
Video Presentation
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