Leftover ICO Tokens? What happens to them?

[AAmar]

I’m new here so I hope I’m posting this in the right place.

I have participated in a few ICOs (etc-20 and other alts) where they did not meet their goal, or did not sell all of the coins.  For example if the circulation says 100M, but only 20M sell during the ICO, what happens to the leftover coins? Are they burned? Do the owners have them? Do they get sold after the ICO has been completed?  I’m sure there could be a few different answers to this question.  Thanks for the help!

[jlanzago]

It depends on the ICO - and this is yet another reason why you should read the whitepaper before investing on them.

Some tokens are burnt forever - thereby reducing the number of tokens in circulation - and the total cap in a fully diluted basis.
Some are kept by the company and could be sold at a later stage. Some may even go to the hands of the team.

It is very important to know - usually the burn of the tokens is better for investors.

[The_Dark_Knight]

I’m new here so I hope I’m posting this in the right place.

I have participated in a few ICOs (etc-20 and other alts) where they did not meet their goal, or did not sell all of the coins.  For example if the circulation says 100M, but only 20M sell during the ICO, what happens to the leftover coins? Are they burned? Do the owners have them? Do they get sold after the ICO has been completed?  I’m sure there could be a few different answers to this question.  Thanks for the help!

At the end it will depend on the developers, they could keep the coins with the hopes of selling them later as it was the original plan, and they may be able to sell them for a bigger profit if the project begins to show positive results, however they could burn the coins, this will benefit the ones that invested in the coin or they could do both, they keep a part of the coins and they burn the rest.

[dillpicklechips]

You mean ERC 20 token and not etc 20, right?

Anyway, it is up to the developers. It can be burned, do a giveaway, airdrop (but not really when we talk about ICO) or they can just keep it for theirselves.

It is very important to know - usually the burn of the tokens is better for investors.

It really is. Lower supply tokens have a greater tendency to have a high price. The plan on this unsold tokens might be stated in their whitepaper as what will they do with it.

[Raffielo]

I’m new here so I hope I’m posting this in the right place.

I have participated in a few ICOs (etc-20 and other alts) where they did not meet their goal, or did not sell all of the coins.  For example if the circulation says 100M, but only 20M sell during the ICO, what happens to the leftover coins? Are they burned? Do the owners have them? Do they get sold after the ICO has been completed?  I’m sure there could be a few different answers to this question.  Thanks for the help!

The tokens act as a calculation toward the investment of an ICO or project and if they aren’t all sold, then they cannot technically be inside the investment, but again, think about mining — mining will be available as an option to gain tokens once the ICO stage has wrapped up and the project goes live onto an exchange. So purchasing or investing in tokens is limited, but there is an exception through mining where tokens can be located — this is different than purchasing or investing. Any leftover tokens are not longer usable because this all acts as a calculation...even it being electronic.

[AAmar]

Thank you all for the great feedback! 

[TimtheYoutuber]

Most ICO's cover what they plan to do with the coins in their whitepaper. Most of them "burn" the coins so that they are no longer in circulation. Others will sell it on a exchange if it is not sold in a presale. Depends on the coin really.

[v3liana]

mostly they will be burn. and some all holded by the developer and will be sell in the market on particular day that had been announced in the ico sale.

[FrankNoland]

I’m new here so I hope I’m posting this in the right place.

I have participated in a few ICOs (etc-20 and other alts) where they did not meet their goal, or did not sell all of the coins.  For example if the circulation says 100M, but only 20M sell during the ICO, what happens to the leftover coins? Are they burned? Do the owners have them? Do they get sold after the ICO has been completed?  I’m sure there could be a few different answers to this question.  Thanks for the help!

As far as I know, there isn't a standard procedure to follow when coming to the non sold ICO tokens/coins, its completely up to the organization as to what will happen to the remaining coins/tokens. Some organizations might decide to keep all the coins which were not sold during ICO with their foundation, some might burn them and some might sell after the ICO has ended(post ICO).

[danbitcoin1]

Most of them burn the tokens, some just keep them for themselves lol

[ghost424]

There are lot of ICO's that have leftover tokens. Sometimes they do airdrops which is very helpful and help spread their token. They also maximize the placement of token for everyone who took part in their campaign periods. Sometimes they just burn the token so the token capacity will be regulated. Others put the token on sale again and wait for the buyers to take it all.

[kaeluxdeuz]

Different ICO's have set different rules to what happens with Tokens for example after ICO, and this is sometimes stated in the whitepaper.
An ICO can decide that their tokens will be burnt and cannot be used and this would mean that the total number of tokens will be reduced OR they can decide that the tokens could be kept and sold later usually at a higher price and the reason being is because there is a lower supply of tokens.

[Futourist]

Has anyone physically burned the leftover tokens? Like burning a hard wallet and making a video.. Was thinking about such PR moves

[chenczane]

It depends on the ICO. Whether they give it for free or sell it in to lower price.

[n4poleon]

This should be asked in the communication channels of the project. Usually, unsold tokens are burned or kept for future development, or they conduct another round of token sale.

[dangdangdang]

That's why a lot of bounty participants are converting their tokens once they hit crypto exchange. Some owners also are putting trust to ICOs that their hope would give them fortune someday.
But those ICOs that aren't successful and turned their tokens into nothing then if you're keeping it there's no point at all.

[dangdangdang]

It depends on the ICO. Whether they give it for free or sell it in to lower price.

My first participated ICO was Tangerine Exchange but unfortunately they're not successful on their project so my tokens I get is just sitting on my myetherwallet and I have nothing to do with it. You can either delete it from your account or just keep it as it is.

[andrii.povkh]

Tokens that are left after the ICO is over should be burned/destroyed. This is clearly stated in the white paper of any good project. If it is not then probably there will be scam attempts from dev to sell leftover tokens and you should keep away from such ICOs.

[ICOtoINVEST]

Tokens will get burned, and in other cases they will be sold at a later stage at higher price.

[Hichi]

If an ICO doesn't complete its goal then it's always returning those coins to the initial investors. They projects need a minimum in order to make their operations work out in the long-term, if that minimum is not met then it's no use to start the project at the first place. In case that happens, and the minimum is not met, then the project returns the original investments to the holders (BTC if they invested in BTC, ETH if they invested in ETH etc.) but of course the entire team will incure a loss, because their project won't be realized and they surely have already invested both money and time in order to prepare what has already been presented to investors. It's a tricky sectors, raising funds, but if you manage to convince people of how you do things then you'll be handsomely rewarded.