As the sun sets on ICOs, it rises with IAOs.

ICOs: Initial Coin Offerings

ICOs are old news. 46% of last year’s ICOs have failed (59% if you consider those classified as “semi-failed”), and support for new currency-based fundraising is fading fast.

Of the numerous reasons so many cryptocurrencies are failing, three core issues stand out among the rest:

Many projects are structured in a such way that even if they achieve adoption, it still won’t raise demand for their currency. Too many projects rely solely on investor funding, rather than developing high value products and services that can be monetized. The world can only use so many global currencies and programmable blockchain platforms.

For some, these problems are a product of starry-eyed entrepreneurs that don’t fully understand business strategy, deflationary economics, or the limitations of the blockchain. For others, it simply comes down to a lack of creativity.

IAOs: Initial Asset Offerings

At Enjin, we strive to enable real businesses of all sizes to conduct real business on the blockchain.

Assets are much simpler to manage than currencies. For the majority of projects, it makes far more sense to offer an asset with provable utility rather than a cryptocurrency with its own economy.

In the context of gaming, there is a long list of in-game items that can be offered in an IAO, including characters, weapons, items, power-ups, skins, employees, real estate, pets, universes, games, and even currencies.

Yes, currencies is still on the list, and a currency sold in an IAO is still technically a cryptocurrency. The difference, however, is that the gaming IAO offers a cryptocurrency that will later be used in games and sold on in-game marketplaces. Therefore, its value will generally be defined by the game’s developers, not by price action on volatile cryptocurrency exchanges.

Whereas ICOs are designed to fund economies and ecosystems, IAOs are specifically designed to fund products and services.

The World’s First IAO

The first ever ERC-1155 Initial Asset Offering, completed by Lucille Games for their debut blockchain game War of Crypto (WoC), was a resounding success.

Featuring a one-time-only selection of heroes and skins, the hype boiled over into frenzy when the IAO suffered a DDOS attack, forcing Lucille Games to temporarily shut down the WoC website. Once their servers were secured, the pre-sale was relaunched and sold out in less than 30 minutes.

The lucky few who obtained pre-sale assets now hold some of the rarest heroes and skins that will ever exist in the WoC universe. As soon as the game is available to play, these heroes will plug right in and be ready for battle.

Enjin’s mission is to empower entrepreneurs like Lucille Games and ensure they can utilize the full force of the blockchain and create the most advanced form of cryptocurrencies — without the need to hire a team of blockchain specialists.

ERC-1155: The True Collectible Standard

In the real world, collectibles are more than just rare, tradable items. The physical attributes of tangible collector’s items create nuanced properties that have a massive impact on their intrinsic, sentimental, and instrumental value.

Because they cost nothing to create and aren’t imbued with materials that can be extracted upon the item’s destruction, ERC-721 tokens are not comparable to physical collectibles. You can mint infinite amounts and there is no material standard to back their value or certify their authenticity.

Enter ERC-1155.