Initial Coin Offering (ICO) is the most commonly used means of raising funds for blockchain-based projects.
It became especially popular because it used to be relatively easy to raise a substantial amount of money in a fairly short period of time. ICO investment was fabulously popular in late 2017 and towards the first three quarters of 2018 but their popularity has faded. This is because a lot of the projects turned out to be a scam, while the vast majority of them lost more than 90% of their value.
And most of the crypto experts may raise questions like - Will the new life in the cryptocurrency markets breathe new life into ICO markets?
In a recent survey: 41% of Institutional Investors to Invest in ICOs Within Five Years
Yes, the good news is - ICOs Ain’t Dead Yet: ‘Wild West’ of Crypto is Making a Comeback!
The survey was conducted in December 2018 and January 2019 by market research company PollRight and included responses from 71 global institutional investors, including private equity, hedge funds, and pension funds.
According to the survey, the growth of the digital asset industry can increase the initial coin offering (ICO) market, as 16 percent of those surveyed responded that they would invest in that sector within three years.
While a larger group, 41 percent, believe that institutional investors will only enter the ICO sector in the next five years, 23 percent also recorded that they do not see investment potential within the ICO market.
Ref - cointelegraph.com
History of Initial Coin Offering (ICO)
When a cryptocurrency startup company or project wants to raise funds through an Initial Coin Offering (ICO), it commonly creates a plan on a whitepaper which states what the entire project is about, what requires the project will fulfill upon completion, how much fund is required to undertake the firm, how much of the virtual tokens the experts of the project will keep for themselves, what type of currency is accepted, and how long the ICO campaign will run for. At the time the ICO campaign, enthusiasts and supporters of the firm’s initiative buy some of the distributed crypto coins with fiat or virtual currency. These coins are specified as tokens and are similar to shares of a company sold to investors in an Initial Public Offering (IPO) transaction.