Investing in an ICO- how does it equate to real money

[trillaggee]

Trying to wrap my head around how this works. My goal is to make some money.... Need some help through the (ideal) steps.

Just trying to follow the money to get the jist (all approximate- not counting the gas, etc)
1. I spent $1,000 to buy 3.26 ETH
2. The ICO has 238,421,940 available to the public
3. I transferred 3.26 ETH to the ICO
4. When it "closes" the sale it has generated $10Million
5. .... now what?

What needs to happen for my $1,000 to become $2,000?
What am I missing?

Appreciate any insights.

[Anonylz]

When the total marketcapitalization of that ICO touches the 2x in their total value, your money will be automaticaly $2000,  and then same happens with all the altcoins listed, included bitcoin.
When someone invest or buys a coin from them, the marketcap goes up ,and it makes your investment rise too, because your money is getting doubled because of that people investment.
It works like this mate, hope that it will help you.

[trillaggee]

Sorry, but im still not following... here's a more detailed example (approximations and ignoring all fees).

I spend $1,000 to buy 3.33 ETH
I use the 3.33 ETH to buy into an ICO while its still "open"
The ICO is offering 500,000,000 of their "tokens"
At the ICO close, they raise $20,000,000 (or 67,000 ETH)
Therefore, I own 0.00497% of the ICO (3.33/67,000) or 24,850 of their tokens.

Is my understanding correct to this point?

If I am thinking right, then this is where I get lost.... Now what? How do I know what their marketcapitalization is? How do I know if I am losing money or gaining money?

Is this like the stock market? Is there a place to see all the ICO marketcapitalizations listed?

Appreciate any help.

[h0lybyte]

It depends on the selling price of token. Simply means if a token price is $0.1 during ICO and you have bought 3.33 ETH equivalent of tokens at the moment it was $0.1/token, now when presale ends and token gets listed on exchange, if it sells at $0.15/token,  you will get $0.05 profit from each token.
Some ICOs get very huge sales and price rises accordingly.

[cointabo]

It depends on how good the project is and if it succeeds or fails.

[Tornand]

You can check out market capitalization of your currency here, if it is listed yet: https://coinmarketcap.com/

In general ICO stands for Initial Coin Offering which is nothing else than a pre sale. So you can buy their coins for a fixed price before it reaches market.
After that everything can happen to your coins. If more people want to buy than sell, the price will go up and you can make profit. If everyone is trying to sell and noone wants to buy, your coin might get worthless.
If you look at the price curves of other coins there are some typical routes. For example in the beginning it spikes and then going to decline forever. Other ones are holding their value and suddenly spiking up.
What I want to say is, that there is no guarantee you will make profit. Actually buying in an ICO is an ultra high risk investment where the biggest single probability will always be complete loss of money.

[Tornand]

Question. I bought into Blackmoon Crypto but i see on that site is is worth 0.776617... am I look at this correctly?? Is that like 77 cents per coin??

Yes. 1 coin is worth around 0,77$

[trillaggee]

It depends on the selling price of token. Simply means if a token price is $0.1 during ICO and you have bought 3.33 ETH equivalent of tokens at the moment it was $0.1/token, now when presale ends and token gets listed on exchange, if it sells at $0.15/token,  you will get $0.05 profit from each token.
Some ICOs get very huge sales and price rises accordingly.

Are you saying that at the end of the sale, that is when the token price is established?

Looking at my example-

The ICO is offering 500,000,000 of their "tokens"
At the ICO close, they raise $20,000,000

At the end of the sale, the token price is $0.04 [$20,000,000/500,000,000].
If I see on https://coinmarketcap.com/ the token price goes to $0.08 that would mean my token value has doubled. In other words, my original investment of $1,000 has doubled to $2,000?