View Completed Initial Coin Offerings in 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017

	Name	Symbol	Start	End	Raised	Our Rating	Investor Rating
	DIAM	DIAM	04/22/2019	05/22/2022	Unreported	--	--

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• New to Initial Coin Offerings? Read our Beginner’s Guide to ICOs.
• Looking to invest? Read How to Invest in ICOs.
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	Name	Symbol	Start	End	Our Rating	Investor Rating
	Loligo	LLG	03/01/2019	TBD	--	--
	OUNA	OUNA	10/01/2018	TBD	--	--

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Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) have become a billion-dollar business model. They offer a fast onramp into the market for fledgling companies, with a route to investor capital that can move at the speed of social media.

For entrepreneurs, the ICO means no longer having to wait for the grinding process of an Initial Public Offering (IPO) or going hat-in-hand to individual investors. It means keeping control over your entire firm rather than parceling out equity before even getting off the ground. It also means creating an early buzz around your product that can prove invaluable down the road.

In the words of Olga Feldmeier, CEO of Smart Valor in Switzerland and an expert in blockchain innovation, the ICO model combines some of the best features of early-stage investing, crowdsales, and the IPO.

As the model matures, analysts like Feldmeier have learned a lot about what makes an ICO succeed. Here are a few practices common to the very best projects.

Focus On Your Community

Feldmeier observes:

“Traditional crowdfunding works on momentum. If you are launching a new project on Kickstarter, for example, and you have not raised at least a third of your goal within the first day or two, investors will shy away. We are herd animals, and we follow each other; no one wants to be the first to invest.”

How can you avoid this pitfall? Launch your project with a solid community already in place. Before offering the first token, have a group of investors lined up and excited to get in on the ground floor. This is known as the “soft circle,” and it can be absolutely critical to getting momentum out of the gate.

Feldmeier continues:

“Companies invariably only get one shot at an ICO, so it is important to get off to a strong start by establishing a presence and generating a network of supporters and followers before embarking on a campaign.”

Engage with followers online. Network with influencers. Talk to the media and appear at any events and conferences you can find. It will all build the buzz, and then don’t let that community go. Your community will be essential not only to the launch of your ICO but also to the success of your blockchain project.

It’s called the network effect. For any project that depends on connectivity among users to generate value, network effects cause value to grow geometrically as users join the network. It also falls at a similar rate. Consider the rapid expansion and implosions of Facebook and MySpace respectively. These were network effects at work; each new user added to the value of the network and made it more likely that others would follow them.

Network effects can define a project’s value, and your community will build it long after the ICO money has been spent. Hoard those contacts.

Related Articles:

• Is It Safe To Invest In ICOs?
• Upcoming Initial Coin Offerings

Develop a Complete Business Plan

Your whitepaper is not enough.

Feldmeier states:

“A whitepaper is a technical document that explains how your blockchain will work, but a business plan gives investors the rigor and analysis that they should require of any investment. This needs to include market analysis, product roadmap, detailed financials, and your user adoption strategy. The blockchain is ultimately about people: it’s only useful if you have people using it. How will you get people to use your blockchain?”

Publish details about the business behind your product. Address your go to market strategy and potential competition. Be upfront about your potential weaknesses and liabilities.

Along with this, be certain to establish clear financial governance. Trust is essential to the development of the blockchain industry, and developing it should be among your top priorities. Don’t wait for third parties to establish the rules that you already know an elite business should follow. Create guidelines for clear and transparent financial governance and publish them in your business plan.

Own the operations of the company you want to start, because that is what your investors are actually buying into. The blockchain is a marvelous piece of technology, but technology is only what your company does. Your business plan needs to describe what your company is and how it works, and it needs to do so as transparently as possible.

After all, trust is earned.

Think Traditional (In the Ways That Help)

While the ICO has created a brand new business model, there are still rules from traditional investing that have served firms well for a very long time.

Lock in your founding team, for example. This is a common practice for executives among major firms because it builds stability. You want your principals around for the years it will take to get your product established in the marketplace. You can do that with vesting periods, and by tying their salaries and bonuses to performance milestones.

Track your money carefully as well.

The nature of blockchain’s culture and technology make this particularly important. Follow Know Your Customer and anti-money laundering laws with precision, and hire third-party firms or auditors to help you get it right. As the money comes in, both fiat and token, it’s critical to make sure that all of your investors are legitimate and trustworthy. It’s arguably even more critical to make sure you have evidence of due diligence in these matters.

Finally, issue an ICO prospectus. Feldmeier notes:

“Our experience is that investors view ICOs as similar to an IPO, and buying tokens as similar to buying stock. It is helpful, then, to issue a term sheet, like a traditional prospectus, that includes a description of the company’s business, audited financial statements, biographies of company officers, and any other material information. This will build trust in the offering, and in the blockchain ecosystem.”

In the world of investment, trust is earned. A prospectus will show the investors that you have taken your business and their money seriously. Moreover, this is the kind of document which professionals expect. As you launch your company, a prospectus will bring in the kind of serious money that can make funding much easier now and tomorrow.

The blockchain industry is maturing. It has left the garages and computer labs and has begun launching products that will change the world. These best practices will help you join that movement.

For insights like this and more, subscribe to the Bitcoin Market Journal newsletter today!

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As blockchain continues to disrupt various global markets, it’s easy to see that this technology has revolutionized standard practices in the world of business. Along with the rise and popularity of blockchain come new ways for projects to raise money. Three of the most popular methods include ICOs, STOs, and IEOs.

While these financial vehicles have similarities, they have their differences as well. Read on for a quick and simple explanation about ICOs, STOs, and IEOs, and untangle the alphabet soup of these offerings.

It All Started with ICOs

Initial coin offerings, or ICOs, got their start in 2014. This was viewed as a way to raise funds that didn’t require using the traditional methodology of going the venture capital route. Through an ICO, investors receive project tokens in exchange for their investments. At the time, using an ICO offered an advantage of lower capital requirements upfront plus significantly reduced overhead.

Though the ICO rose to the top of the blockchain world quickly, its success is now on a downward trajectory. 

While ICOs brought relevance and attention to the digital asset economy, they have experienced their share of problems. Many exit scams, fake token sales, and questionable legal practices have resulted in investors losing confidence in ICOs as a way to raise money.

STOs Aimed at Regulatory Compliance

As the ICO market dwindled, security token offerings, or STOs, stepped in as a viable alternative. With an STO, investors receive security tokens, which are kept on the blockchain. The difference between an STO and an ICO is that security tokens are backed by an underlying asset. These assets hold some form of financial value in the real world.

The benefit for investors with an STO is the increased security and higher level of transparency through the fundraising process. This is primarily due to the guidelines and regulations by which STOs must abide. Most notable among regulatory bodies are the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Unfortunately, STOs come with the prohibitive cost of paying for the legal complexities associated with compliance.

Additionally, regulatory guidelines also limit participants in an STO to only those with significant investing power. STOs must be listed on a regulated exchange since they have to validate all investors, which limits the exposure a security token has to the rest of the blockchain community.

IEOs Offered a New Investment Venue

The most recent fundraising method to show up is the initial exchange offering or IEO. With an IEO, the token itself is linked to a given digital asset exchange. An exchange lists the project’s token while earning both a listing fee and a percentage of tokens sold.

There are a few significant advantages to using an IEO, which is why many projects are gravitating toward this method. First, the exchange does marketing for the project. Second, coins are listed on the exchange immediately after the IEO, as opposed to a few months later, which is the case with most ICOs.

Lastly, participants receive their tokens immediately after the IEO closes. Investors can check their balances on the exchange which hosted the IEO. However, most exchanges require identity validation, so investors will have to complete the process before they can access their tokens.

ICO, STO, or IEO?

Each fundraising option has its own benefits and drawbacks, so always be sure to do your due diligence before investing in a token or project. Assess your risk tolerance as well as your desired investment goals to ensure you are choosing the right vehicle for investment. To stay current with ICOs, check out our initial coin offerings page. For regular updates on STOs and IEOs, be sure to subscribe to the Bitcoin Market Journal newsletter.

The post ICOs vs. STOs vs. IEOs: A Simple Explanation appeared first on Bitcoin Market Journal.

Bitcoin is the leading digital currency measured by market capitalization as well as value. At the time of writing, one bitcoin is worth over $11,000 and its market capitalization is over $200 billion. While bitcoin has managed to maintain its leadership position in the digital currency space, there are several bitcoin alternatives, known as altcoins, that are moving in on bitcoin in an attempt to take its place.

In this article, you will discover the ten leading altcoins and find out why they are close competitors for bitcoin as well as why they may turn into potentially highly lucrative investments.

Ether 

Ether (ETH) is the second-largest cryptocurrency after bitcoin and has a market capitalization of over $30 billion. Ether is the native digital currency of the Ethereum network. The Ethereum network is an open-source distributed ledger platform that enables users to create smart contracts and decentralized applications (Dapps).

Ether, however, is not a digital currency as such. It is not meant to be used to purchase goods and services online as is the case with bitcoin and Litecoin, for example, nor is it meant for international remittances. Instead, Ether is the currency that powers the Ethereum blockchain and is meant to be used by businesses and developers who are building applications on the Ethereum network as the network’s currency.

Due to investors recognizing the potential of smart contracts and decentralized applications, the price of Ether has rallied from less than one dollar during its ICO in 2014 to currently trade at over $290.

Ripple

Ripple (XRP) is the native digital currency of the RippleNet payment network, which allows financial institutions to make ultra-fast low cost domestic and international payments.

The digital currency Ripple is used to pay for Ripple Network transaction fees and needs to be kept as reserves in any wallet used within the network. Since Ripple is the currency used in Ripple’s payment network, it is no surprise that its value has increased substantially over the course of the year as Ripple has already managed to attract over 100 financial institutions to its payments network and is well-positioned to become one of the financial industry’s leading blockchain-based payment systems providers in the future.

Since the start of the year, Ripple has rallied from $0.0062 to over $0.35 and now has a market capitalization of over $16 billion.

Litecoin

Litecoin (LTC) was founded in 2011 as one of the first alternatives to bitcoin. The key difference between bitcoin and Litecoin is that Litecoin has faster transactions times and lower fees than its “older brother” bitcoin.

Due to bitcoin’s scalability challenges, Litecoin has managed to attract more users in 2017, which has driven its price up to new highs. The price of Litecoin was also boosted when popular bitcoin wallet and exchange provider Coinbase added support for Litecoin in April.

Since the beginning of the year, the price of Litecoin rallied from $4.50 to exceed $300 in mid-December and now has a market capitalization of over $7.4 billion and trades at $118 per coin.

Bitcoin Cash

On August 1, 2017, the bitcoin blockchain experienced a hard fork during which the original bitcoin blockchain was upgraded to implement the SegWit scaling solution. At this point, a group of bitcoin miners who disagreed with this update created a fork of the bitcoin blockchain to create Bitcoin Cash (BCH).

Bitcoin Cash differs from bitcoin as its blockchain allows for larger block sizes. This results in faster transaction times and lower transaction fees. As these were two selling points of bitcoin until its scaling challenges become evident, Bitcoin Cash has risen in value after the fork despite the substantial controversy surrounding the project. At the time of writing, Bitcoin Cash is trading at $400 per coin and has a market capitalization of $7.1 billion.

EOS

EOS is the digital currency of the EOS blockchain project which managed to raise over $185 million during its ICO in June 2017. The EOS project is considered by some to the “Ethereum of China” and has thus attracted a substantial amount of investment to develop its scalable smart contracts platform.

Due to its focus on scalability, it is well-positioned to potentially overtake Ethereum, which has suffered from scalability issues throughout the year, and due to EOS’ position in China as the People’s Republic is considered a huge market for the adoption of blockchain applications.

Since EOS has hit exchanges, the price of the digital currency has risen from $1.05 to over $12. Today, it has a market capitalization of $5.3 billion and the EOS token is trading at $5.77.

Binance Coin

Binance Coin has been one of the biggest altcoin success stories in the past two years. Launched during the Binance exchange ICO in 2017, the digital token that provides trading fee discounts on Binance has generated a return on investment of over 13,700 percent since launch.

Moreover, Binance Coin has migrated from the Ethereum blockchain to its own native blockchain, which means its use cases now go beyond reduced exchange trading fees. Given that Binance is one of the most successful blockchain startups today, Binance Coin is poised to remain among the top altcoins in the coming years.

Currently, BNB trades at $33 and has a market capitalization of $4.6 billion.

Bitcoin SV

In November 2018, the Bitcoin Cash network underwent a hard fork that created the new altcoin Bitcoin SV (BSV) after the Bitcoin Cash community could not agree on the technical specifications of its blockchain going forward.

The recently founded Bitcoin SV community is led by self-proclaimed bitcoin investor Craig S. Wright and gambling billionaire Calvin Ayre, who claim that BSV is the closest thing to the original vision of Satoshi Nakamoto as stated in the 2008 bitcoin whitepaper. However, BSV has so far struggled to gain users and its activity has been mainly driven by speculators.

Currently, BSV trades at $200 and has a market capitalization of $3.5 billion.

Tron

Tron was birthed during the ICO boom of 2017 and aims to “build the infrastructure for a decentralized internet.”

Often described as an Ethereum clone, due to the strong similarities between its whitepaper and that of its pioneering predecessor, Tron and its outspoken founder, Justin Sun, have managed to gain users (and token buyers) by offering a faster blockchain than Ethereum and by entering in a number of partnerships that have helped to provide the project with media coverage.

Currently, the price of TRX is $0.032 and its market capitalization is $2.1 billion.

ADA

ADA is the digital currency of the Cardano blockchain project, which was launched in September 2017 by blockchain development company IOHK. The Cardano project held an initial coin offering that lasted from September 2015 to January 2017 and raised around $62 million but was solely targeted at investors in Asia. The ICO funds are being used to develop an entirely new blockchain that allows for the creation of smart contracts and is thus considered a competitor to the popular Ethereum network.

Since ADA tokens become tradable in October 2017, their value increased from $0.021 to over $0.58 in early December and its market capitalization grew to over $10 billion by Christmas.

Stellar

The Stellar Network enables the exchange of digital assets in a fast, cheap, and trustless manner due to the use of blockchain technology. Stellar’s primary goal is to connect banks and payment providers to move money around the world in an ultra-fast and low-cost fashion.

The Stellar blockchain also supports smart contracts which means developers can build a range of decentralized applications on the platform.

The Stellar lumen (XLM) currently trades at $0.101 and has a market capitalization of $1.95 billion.

Related Articles:

• How Many People Use Bitcoin in 2019?
• Top 10 Biggest ICOs (by Return on Investment)
• Best Cryptocurrencies to Mine with a PC

To learn more about bitcoin and altcoins and read insightful articles about investment strategies in this space, subscribe to the Bitcoin Market Journal newsletter today!

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History teaches some interesting lessons. After investigating the most successful ICOs of 2017 to see which factors helped them enjoy great prosperity, the Bitcoin Market Journal team has singled out 2018’s top five ICOs by (1) total funding raised and (2) ROI of token sales.

As an added bonus, our team also shares some insight into some promising upcoming ICOs for 2019.

Top ICOs By Funding

1. Block.one/EOS: When measured in terms of the total money raised, the number one ICO was held by Block.one, which raised $4.1 billion for EOS, a scalable smart contracts platform.
2. Telegram: The runner-up was Telegram, which raised $1.7 billion through two private sales that took place in the first quarter of this year.
3. Petro: Venezuela held a sale of its oil-backed digital currency, Petro, which attracted $735 million from investors. The South American nation, which has suffered from sanctions imposed by other countries, held the sale to jumpstart economic conditions.
4. Dragon Coin: The Dragon Coin ICO, which raised funds for an innovative platform run by British Virgin Islands-based Dragon Inc., drew $320 million.
5. Bankera: Bankera, a blockchain-based banking platform, managed to attract $151 million through its digital token sale.

Top ICOs by ROI

Many ICOs managed to draw significant funding from investors in 2018. However, due to the prolonged crypto bear market in 2018, which saw asset values drop from 70 to 99 percent, only a handful of ICOs showed positive returns. The top five best performing ICOs by ROI in 2018 were:

1. Smartlands, a global security token issuance platform, generated an ROI of 600 percent from its ICO in early 2018 until year-end, making it the best performing top ICO of 2018, according to CoinMarketCap.
2. Digitex, a commission-free futures exchange for digital asset trading, has managed to generate an ROI of over 530 percent from its launch in early 2018 until year-end, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
3. Zilliqa, a decentralized application hosting platform that leverages sharding, experienced a more than 385 percent increase in its token price between its ICO and the end of 2018, Coinist data reveals.
4. ODEM, an Ethereum-based platform designed to empower students and corporate buyers of education to engage with top academics to create high-quality on-site educational experiences at a reasonable cost, generated an ROI of 200 percent in 2018, according to data from Coincodex.
5. EOS, a decentralized blockchain-powered operating system for the development of decentralized applications, was the second-best performing ICO of 2018. According to data from Coinist, EOS generated a return of over 128 percent for its ICO investors.

How They Did it

Smartlands

Smartlands managed to become the best-performing ICO token of 2018 with an ROI of over 600 percent because it has been built on the Stellar Network, which means strong support from the Stellar community, and because, as a security token issuance platform, it provides a valuable service for a growing market within the global token economy. The platform enables companies to launch securities token offerings (STOs) and is well-positioned to become one of the go-to platforms STO issuers for startups and SMEs.

Digitex

Digitex managed to raise $5.2 million and generate a return of over 530 percent for its investors in 2018 because it provides a popular solution for the growing cryptocurrency derivatives trading market. Digitex is a zero-fee futures exchange for bitcoin and Ether. To trade on the exchange, users are required to hold DGTX tokens. The attractiveness of the derivatives trading option the exchange provides means traders have been buying the platform’s token to use the exchange, which helped to push up the token’s value since the ICO.

Zilliqa

Zilliqa managed to become one of the big ICO success stories – raising $22 million and generating an ROI of over 385 percent in 2018 – because this new smart contract computing platform is addressing of the most pressing issues faced by distributed ledger technology today, namely, scaling. Zilliqa has successfully developed and deployed sharding technology to create a highly-scalable, permissionless distributed network.

ODEM

ODEM managed to raise $4 million during its token sale and generate an ROI of over 200 percent for its token holders because the project is tackling a market where there is a high global demand with an innovative new solution. ODEM wants to provide students in developing countries with the same level of education has top-tier U.S. universities by building an “On-Demand Education Marketplace built on the Ethereum blockchain.”

EOS

The success of EOS, which managed to raise over $2 billion and generate a return on investment of over 125 percent in 2018, came down to a range of factors. Arguably, the primary driver of EOS’ success is the technological improvements the new blockchain network brings over its peers in the smart contract computing platforms space. Additionally, the combination of a star-studded team of reputable blockchain entrepreneurs combined with a successful community building effort not only led to an incredibly successful token sale but also to substantial activity on the blockchain network once it launched its mainnet.

Analysts Pinpoint Top Factors for ICO Success

When explaining what helped these token sales succeed, a good place to start is Media Shower’s ICO Manifesto for Founders. According to this document, the three most important factors in any digital token sale are:

• People
• Product
• PR

Several analysts emphasized the importance of these key factors; for example, digital currency trader Marius Rupsys noted that the company’s “breakthrough promise” was important.

However, more than one analyst also stated that speculation and hype were major reasons why certain ICOs succeeded last year. Rupsys said:

“Most ICOs prices are really just speculation, as most of these ICOs did not deliver much from product side, traction or any other measurable result except marketing efforts.”

Iqbal Gandham, UK managing director for social trading platform eToro, stated that when it came to the most successful token sales:

“It was all PR driven and hype-driven, combined with a great timing of the market.”

Several analysts emphasized the key role played by regulatory compliance when explaining why certain ICOs succeeded.

One big reason Filecoin’s token sale succeeded was that it was a regulatory-compliant ICO that provided access to traditional investors, said Marouane Garcon, managing director of Amulet, a crypto-to-crypto derivatives platform that focuses on customer success and usability. Garcon states:

“It was successful because of the investors they targeted.” 

Matthew Unger, CEO and Founder of iComplyICO, also emphasized the key role played by regulatory compliance, noting that many of the entrepreneurs holding ICOs in 2017 overlooked this consideration.

However, he anticipates a different climate this year, stating:

“We expect to see more projects that take due diligence, legal, compliance, and regulation seriously.”

Summary

If you are looking to invest in ICOs during 2019, it is important to keep in mind the several key variables that frequently coincide with successful token sales.

While an ICO’s people, product, and PR are all crucial, these offerings can also be driven by factors such as hype and speculation, as well as how effectively a particular sale complies with existing regulations.

Before investing in any ICO, it is important to perform significant due diligence. One good way to conduct this research is by checking our initial coin offerings page, where you will find information about such offerings.

Another great way to get helpful information is to subscribe to the Bitcoin Market Journal newsletter, which contains the latest news and updates on the digital currency space.

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