Let us start without assuming that you know nothing about what an ICO is. Maybe you do but would like to know better. ICO is an acronym for initial coin offering and like the conventional shares that are traded in the stock market, it gives its owners control over assets of value. If you decide to buy shares, you are likely interested in the future of the company offering those shares for sale. More than being interested, you are also hopeful of a brighter future where the value of those shares would increase. The same applies to investors in companies offering initial coins. Investors receive ICOs as tokens. What really happens is this. Cryptocurrency is turning ordinary people into billionaires and millionaires in seconds. This is why the new cryptocurrency market is getting increasing attention.
As more coins come into the cryptocurrency market everyday, the number of cryptocurrencies in the market continues to increase. There are two ways to create a new coin. The cryptocurrency can be developed from the scratch or copied in which case it becomes a fork of the original coin. To fund the development activities and keep the new coin growing in popularity and market share, developers of new cryptocurrencies often resort to an initial coin offering open to interested investors. The activities of an ICO is mostly unregulated and can afford the coin creators good grounds to raise money by selling a portion of the available cryptocurrency stake in exchange for fiat currency, bitcoin or etherium. While there are several advantages, the disadvantage is that investors bear higher risk because they stand a chance of losing their complete funds to fraudulent, unplanned or unprofitable projects.
Cryptocurrency developers do not just come up with an ICO and gather backers to invest in their projects. Starting an ICO often involves a clear draft of what the creators of the new cryptocurrency intend to do. The draft technically known as the white paperspells out their plan, the maximum amount of the cryptocurrency to be available, how rewards will be distributed, the percentage of total funds allocated for different purposes and the line of action for the development process. The idea is that like crowdfunding campaigns if an ICO fails to meet its funding goal after a period, the fund is returned to backers or investors. If it is successful, the project starts and continues. Bitcoin’s initial value in 2010 stood at fractions of a cent but the present market value has given initial investors at thousands of dollars in profit after a nearly unreasonable price increase of about 2,000% from $1000 to $20,000 in December 2017.
Let us look at the top 5 ICO of 2017, and see what makes these coins stood out in the past year. The list is based on aggregation ratings and is most paralleled by what is provided by Business Insider. Here are the top 5 on our list.
Filecoin comes at the top of our list with a successful $257 million support via initial coin offering. Filecoin actually proves a big innovation in introducing a decentralized network that allows users rent-free spaces on their computer for some amount of filecoin. Developed by protocol lab based in the United Kingdom, filecoin’s
Interplanetary file system proves an undoubted revolution. In its white paper,filecoin is described as a decentralized storage network that converts storage into an algorithmic market. Filecoin brings a new class of proof of storage called proof of replication. Providing proofs that data is stored in a physically independent space. Unlike existing cryptocurrencies, Miners of filecoin would not just mine for the currency but storage space, which is also important.
The next coin on our list with an ICO funding of $232 million is Tezoz. Tezoz creates a smart contract platform similar to etherium. Tezoz is however different in many ways. On its homepage,tezozis a self-governed and decentralized blockchain using a technique that gives mathematical proofs to the rectitude of codes that governs transactions.A general purpose self-amending ledger, trezoz makes a hard fork unnecessary in a blockchain since the network can amend its code.
EOS, a blockchain platform for app development and smart contracts is the number 3 on our list with $180 million raised in ICO. Eos gained attention in the cryptocurrency space by providing not just a network but a platform for application development. Eos aims to remove transaction fees and optimize slow transaction time on etheriumblockchain.
Coming after Eos is Bancor with $153 million raised in ICO. Bancor is a decentralized network that makes it possible for crypto currencies running on the etherium blockchain easily exchange one token for another without the need for third parties. It also provides low transaction fees as a perfect alternative to traditional exchanges.
Last and no 5 on our list is Polkadot. Although a rival coin Status based in the same country—Switzerland appearson some lists. Relay chains, Parachains and bridged are what you will definitely see on Polkadot’s homepage. A heterogeneousmultichain solution, polkadot is a solution rather than a network. It aims to address several problems in existing networks with scalability and isolatability at the top of its list. Polkadot raised $145 million in ICO funding.
You should now know what an ICO is and the big names in ICO fundraise in 2017. No doubt, the cryptowar is here and more than ever, activities in the crypto space are growing into bubbles. No one knows what would happen after a burst. Trust that you had a wonderful read.
