So, what's an ICO and why is it revolutionary?

[bitmover]

I have seen a lot of people asking what is an ICO. I will try to explain what it is here, and why is it so important to cryptocurrencies and to us, small investors.

ICO means Initial Coin Offering. When a company wants to capitalize, it can open an IPO (in a common stock market) or an ICO. An ICO is similar to an IPO.
In a ICO the company capitalizes through cryptocurrencies, mainly Ethereum and Bitcoin. So the company doesn't need to go the stock market any more.

The problem with IPO is that most capitalization occurs pre IPO, when only a few registred investors (whales) can buy the shares.

For years the Banks and a few elite individuals were the only ones who could invest in pre IPO. The made billions and billions, like facebook that jumped from 0 marketcap to 50 billion market before the IPO and we, small investors could invest only after those crazy gains. The same with all other nice companies, GoPro, Amazon...

Cryptocurrency, the whole satoshi vision, is revolutionary because it's empower the individuals. The true community. For the first time in history we, common people, are now able to
chose a company with a good idea, invest in its ICO, see it mature and receive our 1.000% gains. There are pre-ICOs, but they are not compared with pre IPO.

If you take a look at this website https://icodrops.com/ico-stats/ you will see that many ICO have 10x, 20x, 30x and even 50x gains (this last one is OmiseGO).

Amazing isnt it? And before cryptocurrencies only few investors had access to it! Now we have it too!

The problem is, the reward is high, so is the risky. There are many scams out there. Many ICO which were abandoned after the capitalization...

So, how to chose one?
So it's always important to take a look at whitepapers, look at team on Linkedin, look for info about the company on Reddit, telegram... there are few websites like http://icobench.com/ and https://icorating.com/ which rate ICO, so they are a good start.

[HabBear]

ICO means Initial Coin Offering. When a company wants to capitalize, it can open an IPO (in a common stock market) or an ICO. An ICO is similar to an IPO.
In a ICO the company capitalizes through cryptocurrencies, mainly Ethereum and Bitcoin. So the company doesn't need to go the stock market any more.

The problem with IPO is that most capitalization occurs pre IPO, when only a few registred investors (whales) can buy the shares.

ICOs are not revolutionary. They are the same as IPOs and IPOs have been in existence for over 100 years.

An ICO is a starting event. It's the date and time when a new investment (cryptocurrency in this case) is released to the public.

ICOs and IPOs are funded (capitalized as you call it), before and after the starting date event. The only difference between the two is the underlying investment being offered.

[bitmover]

nah...
IPO doesnt have that gains for the reasons mentioned above. Just look at charts.

People never had access to those gains like 700% in 2 months (which are pretty common in ICO), 5000% like OmiseGO... now that people have access to it, they act with disregard...

ICO are revolutionary because we are now out of the stock market, out of wall street, financial system...

[JaredStein]

ICO is an Initial Coin Offering.

It is when a new cryptocurrency is offered for the first time. It is new because cryptocurrency is new. IPO is for stocks and going on for a long time.

[HabBear]

nah...
IPO doesnt have that gains for the reasons mentioned above. Just look at charts.

ICO are revolutionary because we are now out of the stock market, out of wall street, financial system...

Well, Luen Wong Group Holdings jumped nearly 1,500% in the first day of trading! But that's clearly not the norm.

ICOs jumping thousands of percent in a few months isn't the norm either. Most ICOs (there have been at least 1,000) don't perform at all, they just fail. So you can cherry pick a few high performers, but that doesn't mean there's a trend with ICOs that's different from IPOs. In fact, IPOs probably have a more reliable chance of success than any cryptocurrency offering.

The revolutionary part, I'll concede, is that the market for an ICO is as global as they developer team can spread the word about their business idea and related token. IPOs tend to be restricted to one market exchange, and therefore one region of the world.

Don't hype the ICO opportunity, most fail.

[bitmover]

https://techcrunch.com/2012/01/30/facebook-84-billion-valuation/

Pre-IPO Filing, Facebook Trading Privately At $84 Billion Valuation

[pmtxcrypto]

IPOs are also Highly Regulated.  To date that amount of regulation has not hit ICOs.  Starting late last year and a lot more this year Whitelisting / KYC have become the norm instead of the exception in ICOs.  As more regulations creep into Crypto, both good and bad, the exponential returns on ICOs will most likely dwindle.  There will need to be proven business plans, roadmaps, with at least a proof of concept etc.  The copying and pasting of Whitepapers, using fake LinkedIn Profiles etc will decrease. 

To your point it is Revolutionary in the fact that projects and funds can be raised globally on macro and micro levels.  Everyday Jo to Wall Street Orca can both participate and become part of a project and community.  There is a lot of opportunity for money to be made outside of traditional stocks, bonds etc.

[jseverson]

ICOs are not revolutionary. They are the same as IPOs and IPOs have been in existence for over 100 years.

This. Its reputation as being revolutionary is in part due to its nature of being ridiculously easy to set up thanks to non-intervention from governments. Any startup can run their own and easily get funding from people all over the world, and it has been relentlessly exploited. Those days seem to be ending though, so we might see less and less of them, with a large majority of those which remain being legit. It's still a new way of doing something for sure, but it's not inherently different.

[Velkro]

ICO means Initial Coin Offering

In other words, i copied bitcoin, renamed it to PutYourNameHere Coin and now give me your money because it will be revolutionary .
No idea why naming this ICO differ from just most common scam u can could ever know.
Why people falling for it? :[

[HabBear]

ICO means Initial Coin Offering

In other words, i copied bitcoin, renamed it to PutYourNameHere Coin and now give me your money because it will be revolutionary .
No idea why naming this ICO differ from just most common scam u can could ever know.
Why people falling for it? :[

Sir, you are confused.

Initial Coin Offering is just a term to represent the start of a new cryptocurrency. It's not a scam. It's an action. The token being released can be rubbish, but that doesn't mean the ICO event is a scam.

People don't fall for an ICO, they fall for a token with a week business model. There's an ICO for every cryptocurrency created other than by way of hard fork.

[Bailsman]

Sir, you are confused.

Initial Coin Offering is just a term to represent the start of a new cryptocurrency. It's not a scam. It's an action. The token being released can be rubbish, but that doesn't mean the ICO event is a scam.

ICOs do not create a new cryptocurrency, they create share debt records of a precise form (i.e. tokens) utilizing the blockchain of already established cryptocurrency (ETH, NEO, Waves etc)

[Bailsman]

ICOs are not revolutionary. They are the same as IPOs and IPOs have been in existence for over 100 years.

This. Its reputation as being revolutionary is in part due to its nature of being ridiculously easy to set up thanks to non-intervention from governments. Any startup can run their own and easily get funding from people all over the world, and it has been relentlessly exploited. Those days seem to be ending though, so we might see less and less of them, with a large majority of those which remain being legit. It's still a new way of doing something for sure, but it's not inherently different.

Yes! And I think ICOs will be pretty much heavily-regulated soon and will have no other distinctive features from IPOs than automation (smart contracts) and ability to pay crypto.

[HabBear]

Sir, you are confused.

Initial Coin Offering is just a term to represent the start of a new cryptocurrency. It's not a scam. It's an action. The token being released can be rubbish, but that doesn't mean the ICO event is a scam.

ICOs do not create a new cryptocurrency, they create share debt records of a precise form (i.e. tokens) utilizing the blockchain of already established cryptocurrency (ETH, NEO, Waves etc)

Alright, technically that's correct for cryptocurrencies or tokens that have been pre-mined. The Initial Coin Offering is the event that releases the coin or token to the public, thereby publicly unveiling a new cryptocurrency.

It's only creating "share debt records of a precise form utilizign the blockchain of already established currency" when the token is built off the Ethereum blockchain. It's easy to release a cryptocurrency (and several exist) that are not built off the ethereum network.

[atrocityx]

I'd say the only thing revolutionary about ICOs is that you use a global currency (commodity if you want to use that argument) to buy global ideas.. I truly think outside of blockchain technology the most wonderful thing about it (and the whole ICO startup craze) is even with its flaws and scams, the idea of being able to invest in things you believe in essentially without borders is now more achievable than ever.. Live in a pollution dump? Support POWR..  Tired of governments cracking down on people and seeing their transactions? Purchase privacy coins.. The real power is getting behind what you invest in not only as a great idea, but as a global buy in to make us all better without borders.. it may seem a bit idealistic but for me that's where the revolution lies.

[HCP]

The problem with IPO is that most capitalization occurs pre IPO, when only a few registred investors (whales) can buy the shares.

For years the Banks and a few elite individuals were the only ones who could invest in pre IPO. The made billions and billions, like facebook that jumped from 0 marketcap to 50 billion market before the IPO and we, small investors could invest only after those crazy gains. The same with all other nice companies, GoPro, Amazon...

Cryptocurrency, the whole satoshi vision, is revolutionary because it's empower the individuals. The true community. For the first time in history we, common people, are now able to
chose a company with a good idea, invest in its ICO, see it mature and receive our 1.000% gains. There are pre-ICOs, but they are not compared with pre IPO.

Actually, I disagree... this is pretty much exactly what is happening with pre-ICOs. Unless you have access to one of the "sekrit squirrel" ICO "pools" ("first rule of ICO pool is you don't talk about ICO pool"), then your chances of being able to invest in any of the "decent" ICO's these days is very limited.

And even if you are in a pool, it can be difficult. I've heard about pool allocations for <insert #hypeICO> being sold out within minutes of being opened. So, a lot of the ICO's are becoming over-subscribed in the pre-ICO stage! Which generally means the actual ICO never even happens (or is greatly reduced). Effectively, this is no different to large financial institutions and "elite individuals" being the only ones who can invest pre-IPO

[atithisha]

Hello guys,


I think, The Worldwide ICO Revolution.

Recent days there is a especially growth of ICO (Initial Coin Offering ) to finance the development of new protocols in the world of cryptocurrencies.  Nowadays, the two main protocols with their own blockchains are Bitcoin and Ethereum and it is expected to create real value with new functional protocols operating through blockchains technology.

ICO business consists of an initial offer of currency, consisting of a financing system used by the [Suspicious link removed]panies. Alternatively of stocks, investors obtain tokens that can be used to communicate and use the application of the [Suspicious link removed]pany. Plan to launch your ICO website quickly

[bitmover]

I'd say the only thing revolutionary about ICOs is that you use a global currency (commodity if you want to use that argument) to buy global ideas.. I truly think outside of blockchain technology the most wonderful thing about it (and the whole ICO startup craze) is even with its flaws and scams, the idea of being able to invest in things you believe in essentially without borders is now more achievable than ever.. Live in a pollution dump? Support POWR..  Tired of governments cracking down on people and seeing their transactions? Purchase privacy coins.. The real power is getting behind what you invest in not only as a great idea, but as a global buy in to make us all better without borders.. it may seem a bit idealistic but for me that's where the revolution lies.

This.

The idea to invest in things beyond our borders is amazing. As I live in a developing country, being able to invest in companies and projects from other continents, is amazing. Where I live stock market is 100% for national companies, we have no access to another countries ETFs...

[czhen]

if I always stick to the ICO rating and read the whitepaper.
but the problem is that 80% of ICO is now between failure and fraud that makes the popularity of Ico in the eyes of investors so weak.

[aeternus]

ICO means Initial Coin Offering. When a company wants to capitalize, it can open an IPO (in a common stock market) or an ICO. An ICO is similar to an IPO.
In a ICO the company capitalizes through cryptocurrencies, mainly Ethereum and Bitcoin. So the company doesn't need to go the stock market any more.

The problem with IPO is that most capitalization occurs pre IPO, when only a few registred investors (whales) can buy the shares.

ICOs are not revolutionary. They are the same as IPOs and IPOs have been in existence for over 100 years.

An ICO is a starting event. It's the date and time when a new investment (cryptocurrency in this case) is released to the public.

ICOs and IPOs are funded (capitalized as you call it), before and after the starting date event. The only difference between the two is the underlying investment being offered.

Exactly, the project behind an ico could or could not become revolutionary but the concept of gathering money from some other people and then use that money to create a project is not revolutionary at all, that is just basic investment and it has probably existed for thousands of years, the only problem with icos is that there are many scams and people are beginning to avoid them.

[KorakPawon]

this can be called the development of an increasingly advanced era, the more advanced technology, such as the emergence of ICO, if likened to a company that finance a product, na ICO is a fund to deploy an application that will be paid in the form of ICO.