How to Launch an Initial Coin Offering (ICO): Examples of the Most Popular ICOs in 2017
A New Gold Ecosystem: Cryptocurrency
What is an ICO (Initial Coin Offering) and how does it work? To begin, you must first comprehend the meaning of crypto currency. Cryptography is used to secure a cryptocurrency, which is a digital or virtual currency. Cryptocurrencies make it easier to send money between two parties in a transaction for a cheap fee, allowing users to avoid the high fees levied by most banks and financial institutions. We can call cryptocurrencies "digital gold," because they provide a very dynamic, rapidly expanding market for investors.
Bitcoin and Ethereum are the two well-known cryptocurrencies today:
Editor's note: This article was first published in September 2017 amid the ICO phenomenon's rapid growth, but it was rapidly losing its market value due to its immature nature. In 2019, a new coin-offering transformation option, IEO, has emerged as a new degree of coin-offering transformation. Is an IEO a viable substitute for an ICO? Read our post on how to understand an initial coin offering.
So, What Is an Initial Coin Offering (ICO)?
An ICO (initial coin offering) is a new type of crowdfunding project that has arisen in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industries. It lets initiatives to be funded through the sale of tokens or crypto currencies, which are akin to initial public offerings (IPOs). There are some distinctions. The first is that instead of selling shares for money, a company distributes its own cryptocurrency called "tokens" to investors in exchange for other cryptocurrencies (like Bitcoin or Ethereum). Usually, the tokens can be resold right away. TenX, a Singapore-based firm, raised $34 million in 7 minutes, for example.
What is the incentive for investors to support an initial coin offering (ICO)? It's self-evident: the incentive is that the token's price will be considerably greater than it was during the ICO. They can trade them on public cryptocurrency exchanges like Kraken or Poloniex to enhance the value of the tokens significantly.
Another important contrast is that the IPO is subject to stringent government oversight and security. As a result, releasing its shares necessitates the completion of a substantial number of paperwork. Due to its unconstrained scope, bitcoin crowdfunding is a clear winner in this scenario. An ICO can be launched practically anywhere and at any time. Such potential, however, bring with them additional risks for both the ICO team and the investors. Read Applicature's article about the top ICOs before we go over the hottest aspects of creating an ICO project.
How to Create an Initial Coin Offering (ICO)?
When initiating a token crowdsale, think about whether it can be organically integrated into the product's business strategy. Your token will become popular as a result of well-organized project economics and incorporation of the token into the firm structure, which will attract investors. On the website and in the White Paper, this information should be explained in full.
Raising the necessary funds for your project's realisation is insufficient. The success of an ICO is dependent on a number of other aspects, including future prospects, team professionalism, and reliable investors. BitcoinTalk allows for direct connection with the target audience, allowing for questions to be answered as well as beneficial suggestions and advice on the topic at hand.
Success of the Initial Coin Offering
It is critical to properly encapsulate your idea, specify the aim, assemble an authoritative team, and safeguard the interests of investors before launching an ICO. Then you can move on to the technical aspects of the project's development.
When planning an ICO campaign, there are a few things to keep in mind. Some ICOs have a skilled team and a well-thought-out plan for project implementation and growth. However, their marketing plan has failed to develop a positive relationship with a critical audience for the project, such as blockbuster fans, traders, and investors. The ICO milestones must be understood in order for the project to be successful and overwhelming. It is important to grasp the technological framework of the entire process before beginning an ICO project.
The goal of the project must be defined and realistic in order for investors to have faith in it.
Transparency and authenticity are the cornerstones of the bitcoin community, as evidenced by the explicit objectives. The project must demonstrate its work-in-progress stages, according to crypto industry standards. Each product need its own business card. One of the most important open sources of information for potential supporters is the website.
In the field of blockchain technology, white papers and roadmaps are critical processes. A white paper's goal is to promote a specific product, service, technology, or approach while also influencing the decisions of present and potential customers. It is a technical document designed to inform specialists, opinion leaders, professionals, and enthusiasts about the product's technical features. White papers are intended to be used as a pre-sale marketing tool.
The roadmap must include goals that are clearly stated and genuinely feasible, as well as time frames for achieving them. Concrete goals and related success indicators can be included in the plan to provide valuable information. When creating a roadmap, the structure of the roadmap and the subsequent steps of the subsequent actions are critical. The roadmap's goals in the product retrospective serve as important reference points:
What exactly is going on behind the scenes of the project?
What is the organization's historical timeline?
How far has it progressed over the course of the roadmap?
What programmes was it a part of?
The project's defined future perspectives
TenX Initial Coin Offering
TenX is a Fintech payment firm established in Singapore that provides consumers with cryptocurrency-backed debit cards and mobile wallets. By integrating any blockchain through COMIT, users will be able to spend their crypto currency as simply as fiat, thanks to a debit card that is accepted on the Master Card and VISA networks, as well as a mobile wallet.
The TenX roadmap is broken into three segments, according to the white paper:
Overview of the Timeline
TenX's idea was chosen as the winner of the DBS Blockchain Hackathon and received a prize of 15 000 SGD. In mid-2015, money was put towards the foundation of the company TenX.
TenX wallet's alpha version became live in 2015, and it was relaunched as TenX.
The company was accepted into the Paypal incubation programme, indicating that their product is trustworthy and reputable.
In 2017, a beta test was done with 1000 users, resulting in a transaction volume of roughly 100 000 SGD. As a result, they already have a working product, putting them at the top of the priority list.
In March 2017, the startup raised $1 million in a seed round.
The reputation of the team
A strong staff is essential for investors to contribute to a project. Members of the team, particularly the development team and advisory board, should be open to any possible supporter or investor. Unknown names cast doubt on the project's intentions. Staff may have high-level professionals, together with their faces and social media profiles, Linkedin profiles, to ensure audience trust. Relevant industry experience, as well as the success of previous ICO projects and the influence they had, are powerful arguments for contributors to participate in the project.
Bankera is one example of an ICO that has successfully leveraged a talented team.
Bankera is a blockchain-based bank that will use technology to reduce the number of counterparties and hence cut the cost of banking for the end user. The original team owns and operates a profitable product under the brand name SpectroCoin since February 2013, according to the whitepaper. It performs the functions of a cryptocurrency exchange, e-wallet, debit card issuer, and payment processor. SpectroCoin was created with the goal of giving clients with access to a variety of crypto currencies from the start. To be competitive, SpectroCoin has to develop a lot of traditional banking-related products, including as debit cards, payment processing, international bank account numbers, foreign exchange, and so on. As a result, SpectroCoin has built core infrastructure that is comparable to that of regular institutions. The use of existing technology to build Bankera, a revolutionary bank for the blockchain era, is a natural extension of SpectroCoin.
Bankera's strategy
One of the main goals for the development team prior to an ICO is to create an MVP (Minimum Viable Product). The working prototype demonstrates the product's capabilities to the public and potential investors.
Monetha is another example of a good team reputation.
What sets it apart from other cryptocurrency merchant solutions is that it is developing a decentralised, blockchain-based payment solution with an integrated trust and reputation system.
Monetha has built an MVP that allows merchants to accept Ethereum payments in their e-commerce store (https://www.monetha.io/en/mvp) after working on prototypes.
MVP of Bankera
What is an ICO team's strength? First and foremost, well-educated and high-ranking members play an important part in the project's development. Second, the team's background and advanced activity during the roadmap. Third, they have created a product. The Enigma project will serve as a solid example in this regard.
Enigma
Enigma is building a decentralised, open, and secure data marketplace where individuals, businesses, and organisations may contribute and consume information. Subscribing to a data source is done on-chain, with incentives and penalties being traded using their token. The data itself, as well as its storage and transmission, is stored and transmitted off-chain. In this way, the blockchain serves as the network's controller, while the off-chain network is in charge of everything else.
Enigma is an initial coin offering (ICO) concept.
The Enigma team is made up of MIT graduates, traders, and former McKinsey personnel. Prof. Alex Pentland, a Director at the MIT Media Lab and a board member at Google and Telefonica, is among the advisors. Former Quantopian director of hedge fund development Justin Lent. The leadership team has a lot of potential, as they have a lot of expertise and knowledge in similar fields. FLOODGATE, FLYBRIDGE CAPITAL PARTNERS, CONVERGE, HEROIC VENTURES, and another crypto VC, DIGITAL CURRENCY GROUP, are among the investors.
Team Enigma's Initial Coin Offering
Enigma Catalyst has had an alpha version of the platform available since July 2017 for anyone to try out.
How Can Investors' Interests Be Safeguarded?
What are the techniques for motivating contributors to help the project succeed? Let's have a look at them:
Discounts, premiums, and bounty schemes are all available.
There is a must-rule: investors receive discounts during the first few days of the campaign.
In the event of failure, the funds will be returned.
You should also keep in mind that there is always a chance that your goals and objectives will fail. When it comes to multiple-choice games, it's critical to be cautious. There are always scammers that can harm your reputation and cause you to fail in your goals. As a result, you must constantly be prepared to restore monies to its contributors.
Discounts and Bounty Programs can be used to entice the audience.
Early-bird investors typically receive perks and discounts. Before starting an ICO, it would be prudent to define the terms for investors. We recommend looking at the most popular summertime ICOs to visualise this element of creating an ICO.
TenX.
There are bonus and bounty systems, according to the white paper.
Bonus Schedule for the TenX Initial Token Sale:
You will receive 350 PAY tokens for one (1) ETH. This translates to 1/350 ETH per PAY token. Users that commit earlier will receive additional tokens as an incentive (early-bird bonus). The exact bonus schedule can be found in the table below:
TenX Special Limited Edition
If you purchase 25 ETH or more in tokens, you will be one of the first to receive the new and very exclusive TenX Card, which will only be available during the TenX Initial Token Sale.
a ten-fold card
TenX Platinum Founder Edition
If you spend 1,250 ETH or more on TenX tokens and wish to be a part of the highly exclusive TenX token sale founders' team circle, you will receive the founders' edition TenX Card, which will only be distributed during the TenX Initial Token Sale.
Platinum card ten times
Independent security researchers can submit vulnerabilities to this programme. Every security vulnerability submitted that results in a fix on TenX's side will receive a monetary award, in addition to a spot in the security hall of fame and a free TenX card.
What and who can have an impact on your reputation?
In the event that the project fails, you must always have a backup plan. The capacity to protect investor rights is critical to your reputation. Enigma's current red flag is a fantastic example: the hackers capture roughly $500,000. Because CEO Guy Zyskind had not updated a previously hacked password for his email account, the attacker obtained access to Enigma's Slack community, website, and some of its mailing lists to post the messages.
Despite the team's poor security that resulted in such an occurrence, the choice to repay ICO investors was a wise one.
The ICO campaign's public relations strategy and marketing
Establishing a high-quality interaction with the supporting community on social media platforms (Slack, Twitter, Telegram, Facebook) and blog platforms is critical (Medium).
It's not about the number, but about the quality. You can own a lot of communication channels, but the most important thing is the strategy you devise. Keep in mind that initial coin offerings (ICOs) are growing more competitive. Create incredible content formats. This could help you persuade investors using social media.
Before launching an ICO, we went over the most practical marketing tools to demonstrate their importance. Let's take a look at some existing ICOs and their marketing strategies for token offerings.
Social Media Sites (Facebook, Twitter)
If you decide to start an ICO, your campaign should cover all aspects of social media management, including presenting all relevant information about the product and the campaign. Presentable ICO also includes timely posts and appearances in the media.
Slack and Telegram groups for community discussion
The most significant communication mediums are Slack and Telegram. It's a large online community that brings together project creators, users, investors, and team members. When analysing an ICO project, it's important to get a sense of the climate in these communities. What is crucial? It's all about time management; community queries must be answered promptly and on a regular basis.
Blog on Medium
Medium is a great place to learn about a project's goals, terms and conditions, roadmap and future plans, as well as the development and present activity of an ICO. The number of people who follow you is determined by the frequency of your posts, the activity on your blog, and the information that you provide.
Bitcointalk.org threads
Bitcointalk.org is a massive Blockchain platform for discussing Bitcoin and related topics. The creation of a campaign on this forum is essential since it allows you to communicate directly with traders and investors, as well as the targeted audience that is exposed to the developers. The project reviews on Bitcointalk are a mix of negative and positive. Critical points of view, on the other hand, can help you improve and fix your project.
It is strongly advised that you collaborate with the investors and the audience. Read the messages carefully and try to answer all of the questions that come up. Do not ignore unfavourable feedback; instead, keep an eye on it and participate in the communication process.
Public Relations in the Media
The media's coverage of the project is critical in fostering positive perceptions and announcing the team's success, expertise, and dependability. The media is the primary channel for public communication in the PR sector. As a result, the PR effort should begin at least three months before the ICO is launched. Develop long-term relationships with journalists and reporters.
The project's public relations manager must be familiar with the following marketing tools:
Press announcements and articles written after the event
in the media publications
News releases in video and audio format
Meetups, events, and conferences
One of the most basic tools for giving content to the media is the press release. It can be swiftly disseminated through many publications. Concerning the crypto subject, it is recommended that they be authored by professionals.
YouTube
This method of communication might be an excellent substitute for written information found in newspapers and magazines. People love vlogs because they can see who is speaking to them. Video news is easier to comprehend, and it has a physical impact on fear and realisation. Create your own public-interest channel to observe how news is disseminated.
Campaign for a bounty
Bounty programmes are the lifeblood of an ICO. They entice people to participate in certain PR campaigns in exchange for tokens. This type of incentive campaign is open to everybody. Tokens can be exchanged for social media participation, website translation, creating project articles and blog entries, and exposing secure vulnerabilities, among other things.
There are a number of ICO trackers where your idea could be included. Consider the ICO-list. It prefers platforms that are related to ICO projects and are positioned near the names of ICO initiatives.
Let's look at some recent relevant ICO projects to demonstrate a qualitative marketing strategy:
TenX
https://www.facebook.com/tenxwallet> Facebook: 12 533 likes
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tenxwallet/twitter/tenxwallet/twitter/tenxwallet/twitter/tenxwallet/t
Keeping the public informed about current activities promotes openness and builds trust and confidence in the team's objectives:
#tenxcommunity #tenxwallet #tenx #success #entrepreneur #winnersmindset pic.twitter.com/Xafpg3Ir0O
— Dr. Julian Hosp (@julianhosp) 2 октр 2017
Read 159959 times on Bitcointalk https://bitcointalk.org/index.php? topic=1953612.0
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrh49JX-9UQJbee6e4EGhog YouTube: 8 070 subscribers
5 246 readers on TenX Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/TenX
The Media:
ten times the media
Enigma
EnigmaCatalyst has 979 likes on Facebook and 1 150 followers.
Twitter (https://twitter.com/enigmampc): 8 147 followers
https://t.me/enigmacatalyst has 8 121 members on Telegram.
680 readers on Reddit tenfold https://www.reddit.com/r/enigmacatalyst
https://blog.enigma.co/ has 2K followers on Medium.
The Media:
Mass media enigma
Bankera
Facebook: 13 994 likes/ 14 407 followers https://www.facebook.com/bankeracom
Twitter: 2 977 followers https://twitter.com/Bankeracom
Telegram: 1 677 members https://t.me/bankera
Medium Blog: 138 followers https://medium.com/@Bankera_blog
Bankera Chat https://chat.bankera.com/channel/community