The first ICO was held by Mastercoin in 2013 with an idea to develop own protocol on top of Bitcoin blockchain. As a result, they managed to collect an equivalent of USD 500K. More than 500 people took part in the ICO. Going back to 2018, 3-5 ICOs are now held in average every week collecting not five hundred thousand but tens of millions of dollars.
More than a half of tokens of the overwhelming majority of ICOs  have goting into the hands of the ten largest investors. That said, if ICO initiators limit the number of tokens sold to one person, one investor (or a group of investors) can have several wallets, and no one will know about it because of anonymous character of blockchain. It follows that large players or whales using the blockchain slang play a significant role on the market. They invest several million dollars in a project at once leaving tiny bits to "ordinary people".
In order to be the first ones to get the best piece of ICO pie, whales use their deep pockets to buy the largest token blocks and pay in excess to be the first in the line. There is a well-known case when an investor paid USD 6K of commission to miners to process his transaction first. The whales on the cryptocurrency market are of various origin. Let's review several main types:
1. Groundbreakers
More than one cryptocurrency has shown more than a hundredfold growth within the last five years making its followers having believed in the coin at the very beginning and been able to survive the strongest market turbulence, extremely wealthy. These people have a very good feel of the market. For sure, most of them have kept investing in other cryptocurrencies wishing to repeat their success. Some of them have united to establish crypto funds, which will be covered later.
2. Miners
The process of cryptocurrency "production" at the account of computer capacity is called mining. Computers close a block of transactions and open a new one by solving complicated computational tasks using numerical method. That's how a chain of blocks is formed, hence the blockchain name (transaction blockchain). The system rewards the miner having found a correct answer by a fixed bonus in form of internal blockchain currency. Miners compete with one another for this prize. The more computational capacity a miner has, the higher is the chance to win.
3. Institutional investors and venture funds
It has been clear from the very beginning that uniting in pools is advantageous. According to Autonomous Next research there are more than ten groups with annual earnings exceeding USD 50M on the market. The players of older markets start reviewing the new market opportunities. Special funds emerge intending to invest only in cryptoeconomy. There are tens of examples of such companies: Polychain Capital, Digital Currency Group (dcg.co), Blockchain Capital (blockchain.capital) etc.

It should be noted that whales are dangerous not only for other investors but for the projects themselves. A situation when several persons hold a significant part of tokens has a negative impact on liquidity of this asset and bears a threat of market manipulation.

Если филосовски по размышлять на данную тему, и окунуться в теории заговора, то главным камнем преткновения  является гегемония США. А точнее гегемония нефте доллара, как главной доминирующей валюты. Все логические законы перестали существовать вместе с концом Бреттон-Вудской валютной системой и началом Ямайской валютной системы 1978г (которая действует до сих пор). Тогда официально был отменен золотой стандарт и с тех пор все это подается под красивым соусом, мол курсы валют устанавливаются не государством а рынком. Деньги стали делаться из воздуха причем частными "лавочками" типа ФРС США или центральными банками развитых стран. А "крышует" все это правительство США при помощи "дубинки" в виде военного бюджета размеров в 700 миллиардов (все тех же напечатанных "из воздуха" вечно зеленых) и военных баз по всей планете земля. Появилось так называемое право сильного. По всему миру уже давно куплены с потрохами целые правительства, многие чиновники, самого высшего уровня, рейтинговые агенства, общественные организации и далее по списку.

Основной выгодоприобретатель данного расклада в глобальном обмане глобальной экономике понятен и известен.
Кто-то скажет, -"А причем тут криптовалюты, и почему они вообще их не запретили?" Огромные долги США, Евросоюза и прочих государств своим центральным банкам не могут накапливаться вечно. Любой финансовый пузырь, рано или поздно схлопывается. Поэтому "мировым банкирам" нужен запасной план.
Заигрывания с криптовалютой, уж больно четко, проходят по "законам" окна Овертона. В конечном итоге можно предположить такой вариант, при котором театр поменяет актеров при том же закулисье. И будет все как всегда в этом мире, по типу, боролись за все хорошее, а получилось как всегда. Сильные мира сего без боя не отдадут такую власть. Около 100 лет "они" держат этот мир, на коротком поводке, развязывая войны, разруху и хаос. Это крайне выгодно ведь пока одна часть мира полыхает в другую стекается капитал. Так было и в первую и во вторую мировую. Если не получится развязать еще одну (что с большим рвением они сейчас и пытаются сделать) их гегемония закончится, доллар перестанет иметь хоть какую то ценность, и как раз тут они попытаются высунуть туз из рукава.
2017 год был репетицией запасного варианта, плана "Б" на случай полного краха мировой финансовой стабильности. Мы видим как при каждом скачке курса биткоина и алькоинов в криптомире, основными бенефициарами становятся "киты" финансовые корпорации и магнаты. При каждой нестабильности произошедшей случайно по каким-либо обстоятельствам (как нам обьясняют мировые таблойды) Они лишь богатеют, и отбирают криптоценности у народных масс.
В процессе развития общества богатые богатеют, а бедные беднеют, а равновесие между ними не достигается практически никогда. И нет я не говорю о "счастливчиках"которые попали в струю и разбогатели. Сами того не понимая эти "счастливчики"- это лишь винтики этой системы. Они словно наживка подсаживают народ, как бы показывая своим результатом,что на их месте может оказаться каждый, нужно лишь окунуться в этот омут. Подсаживают тот самый народ, что за последние десятилетия стал обществом потребления, тот самый, который проглотил мировой кризис 2008 года, и не привлек не кого к ответственности...

По моему мнению, эксперимент прошел успешно, и сейчас они лишь хотят на время заморозить результат. Отсюда и резкий вывод капитала из криптомира, запрет на рекламу криптовалют, токенов и ICO и.т.д.

Отмечу, что это всего лишь мои мысли, а вы что думаете на этот счет?

P.S. Ребят оценивайте на сколько доступно оформил свои мысли. Готов выслушать ваши отзывы, так же вашу критику.

[Market.]

Every investor needs to remember that participation in an ICO entails high profitability and high risks as well. Token distributions largely resembles traditional venture market, where the players expect startups to grow 30-40 times but regularly lose money in unsuccessful projects.

Companies rarely have a complete product at the ICO stage, as a rule it's just an idea, a technical solution (in whitepaper format), a visual prototype. They are still have a long way ahead - gathering a team and marketing their product to clients. At this development stage companies could have counted on the very first, seed round of venture
investments. This is the most risky investment stage on the venture market: on average a half of start-ups at ten such rounds brings nothing to an investor, 3-4 have some profitability and only 1-2 show a tenfold growth.

Thus, what ICOs are worth investing in? The investor should answer the following key question to select a correct project from the market variety: "Why will a particular token grow in price and what growth potential it has?".

Traditional financial assessment instruments will be of no help here due to a number of reasons. Firstly, the project has no indicators at this stage, so it's impossible to access its value. Secondly, a token is not a specific share in a project. It turns out that the exact numbers are determined only by the market supply and demand, which mainly depend on the investors' expectations.

Then how would you assess token price growth potential in real life? Analysis is what will help here. The project is split into specific key points, each of which is assessed separately. It helps to determine company strengths and weaknesses, development potential, and possible problems.

It is recommended to consider the following parameters in project analysis:

1. Market. It determines the project scale and development potential to a large extent. The perfect situation is as follows:
• A market with high development potential already having sufficient volume or a unique market;
• Low competition or its absence;
• Forecast that the project will take a significant market share.

2. Product. The value and potential of the idea itself can only be assessed subjectively. Attributes of a perfect product (as of ICO date) are:
• Unique idea, good blockchain usage, open-source;
• Solution to a relevant market problem;
• Technical part is well described in the whitepaper;
• The market is already ready for the product or will be ready within a couple of years;
• Problems of other blockchain projects do not impact the product performance;
• Community gives a positive feedback on the product, sees its value.

3. Token role. An important aspect for any investor directly influencing profitability. It is difficult to single out the best token model, but the required attributes can be described:
• Functional application within the network, which cannot operate without the token;
• The token demand among the network participants increases together with the project development.

4. Current achievements. This will help to understand the main goal of the team - to launch a particular product or to earn by means of ICO, and whether the team can work without substantial financing. Notable achievements prior to an ICO lower the risks for an investor. The examples of such achievements are:
• Free access to the alpha version of product;
• Speeches at conferences;
• Valuable partnerships.

5. Roadmap. Information from a roadmap will give the investor a clue as to when to expect any market activity. When a project hits its milestone, token prices usually surge. An ideal roadmap contains a detailed description of development stages taking financial component into account. In this case the team has a good understanding of how to move to the set goal.
 
6. Team. This factor is the main indicator of further project success for many investors. A good team can change the product or invent a new one in the worst-case scenario while a bad team can fail even with the best idea. A perfect team at the ICO stage includes:
• People having experience / expertise on the selected market (it is kind of hard to create a product for lawyers without any lawyers);
• Blockchain developers;
• People undertaking business process (operations, finance, scaling);
• CEO with experience in management and business;
• Advisory board to complement the team in the above mentioned aspects.

7. ICO conditions. Pay attention to the three following components: ICO limits, holding conditions, token distribution. There is no correct format, the conditions may significantly differ depending on the specific crowdsale. Positive aspects for each of the components are:
• The minimum and maximum amounts the project can collect correspond to its scale. It means that if a project fails to reach the minimum amount, all funds will be returned to the investors, and in case of a success the project will not receive any "excess" money. It's a big plus if the team can justify the ICO limits rather than just indicate the collected funds application fields. Even better if the money is given out in parts, upon reaching of particular milestones.
• The holding terms prevent accumulation of tokens in the hands of the largest players (whales);
• Token distribution is specifically justified by the team, the founders get a small percentage (15-20%). The team will not be able to sell tokens for an extended period of time.

Think about the investment strategy after the project review. There are two main ways: sell the tokens immediately after entering an exchange or wait for the future company development and exponential token growth. Both strategies will work out if in the course of analysis investors understand that the ICO is worthy and the project has great potential. However, specific results depend on various factors. Let's list the ones impacting the price growth immediately after entering an exchange:
There are not enough tokens for all investors. Everything potentially creating deficit of tokens at the ICO stage increases the future demand when they appear at an exchange:
• Many investors believe in the project. The higher the overall mass of investors assesses the project potential, the greater are the chances on price increase;
• The team runs a high-quality marketing campaign (only if there is an upper limit). Then more investors will know about the project and will want to purchase the tokens;
• The tokens will not be available on an exchange at once. The longer the pause after the ICO, the more chances on quick growth after the trading starts.
 
Let's also list the factors of long-term price growth:
The team is active. Investors assess the project higher if its developers are active in social networks, describe the current tasks and plans for the nearest future;
• The team presents results. It can be implementation of planned functions, new partners or clients;
• The project has development potential. The more and faster the project can grow in the future, the higher the investors' current assessment;
• Tokens play an important role. Tokens have high potential if functional (not speculative) demand on the internal currency is directly connected to the project development. All these factors are closely related to the project analysis criteria (team, market, ICO conditions, etc.). They can be used as reference questions before investing. 
 

Search for a financing source is the key development factor for many companies; this statement is true in respect of very young businesses as well as the experienced market players.

IPO (Initial Public Offering) is the traditional means of large-scale fundraising. A company sells its securities on an exchange, thus receiving profit, which often significantly exceeds its annual income. But IPO is rather elite crowdfunding form, raising funds from an unlimited range of people. The share preparation procedure comes at a price and requires considerable amount of time, up to a year. Plus there is a high entry threshold set for investors. Thus, only large companies can undertake an IPO and only large sponsors are able to buy their shares.

The more democratic environment of cryptocurrency market has given birth to the ICO (Initial Coin Offering) notion, similarly to the IPO term. The companies having chosen this way of fundraising issue digital tokens instead of shares. The investors will be able to use the acquired tokens in the future as follows: to pay for the services within the platform on more favorable conditions or to wait until the tokens go up in price, enter an exchange and trade them for other cryptocurrencies or fiat money at a profit.

Since an ICO involves token issue, a project launching such campaign must employ blockchain technology. ICOs are mostly launched by fintech start-ups when the product itself exists only on paper. But even if at first thought a business has nothing in common with information technologies, it does not mean it cannot run an ICO. One just needs to think how to introduce blockchain technology to this particular project. Because blockchain has been created to make people's lives easier. A simple example: a farm can create an Internet platform where the company tokens will be used to make better deals for the products.

However, one must understand that an ICO is not the same as an IPO. IPO investors purchase a share in a company and become its coowners, while ICO sponsors only get internal currency. The legal status of the ICO is not defined either, the investors are not legally protected in case their financing object fails on the market. Or not even in case of a fail on the market, but at failure to enter it; there are cases when companies get the funding and never make the product. The crypto industry is now a kind of Wild West where anyone can establish their own rules.

So study the project thoroughly and pay close attention to the development team when investing large sums of money. However, even the smallest sums can be invested in an ICO, the token prices start with several cents. This is one more fundamental difference between ICOs and IPOs: anyone can become an investor, they just need to create a cryptocurrency wallet on any convenient platform, replenish it with any amount, wait for the token sale start - a couple of clicks and you have acquired the tokens.

There also exists a Pre-ICO practice. This procedure is not mandatory but more and more companies prefer holding a closed pre-sale. Tokens cost even less at the Pre-ICO stage but the purchase entails great risks for investors. The money received from the token pre-sale is often invested in a beta version of the product.

Thus, the blockchain technology offers companies to raise investments for implementation of their ideas in a simple way, with no sale of the company shares. The ICO market is quite young and still is in its infancy. However, it has some growth problems resulting primarily from ambiguous legal situation and increasing number of bad faith and even fraudulent start-ups.

Strategy 1 - The Way of the Samurai:
1. Buy Bitcoin;
2. Relax.

Strategy 2 - The Way of the Trader:
1. Predict what will grow;
2. Predict where it is profitable to invest;
3. Predict when it stops growing.

Strategy 3 - follow the money:
1. Buy leaders;
2. Relax.

Strategy 4 - Pennistocks:
1. Buy the most nondescript, oblique and crooked;
2. Just lay low and watch;
3. Someone shoots - sell.

Strategy 5 - Mining:
1. Buy equipment;
2. Plug in the outlet;
3. Money drips every hour.
(Drip down what is currently most profitable. Combining investment and mining, you get the result).

Strategy 6 - Startups:
1. What is ICO ?
2. How to select them correctly;
3. How to select them for a newcomer.
(In the long run, the most important thing is that you choose).

Strategy 7 - Trust:
1. Mining contracts / Cloud-mining;
2. Passive / active funds Crypto-currency;
3. ICO funds;
4. How to select them.

Ideal strategies:
1. Sell shovels (serve crypt business);
2. Combine seven non-ideal strategies.

P.S. If you get rich with these strategies in 2018, give merit!