What is an ICO?

Initial Coin Offering (ICO) is similar to an IPO (Initial Public Offering) except it works in the world of virtual currency and it deals with crowdfunding. In an ICO, funds are raised by the creation and selling of digital coins. To simplify, it is a modern cryptocurrency fundraising mechanism for blockchain startups.

The plan is to raise development funds and to roll out the project to the early adopters. They do this with the help of a distributed ledger for token accounting, and a designed platform that provides a service against the spent or owned tokens. A limited supply of tokens are sold and during the early development stage of a blockchain service the development team usually pre-sells platform access, security tokens (or coins).

In an ICO, the startup issues out their own cryptocurrency coin in exchange for legal tender or cryptocurrency, like Ethereum or Bitcoin, and these represent future functional units of currency till the lifetime of the startup. It is a perfect opportunity for early contributors to support their project ideas by buying discounted tokens for their own business purposes or by investing wisely into projects that have a chance of high profitability, from those discounted tokens, during the project’s course of life.

For now, it is an unregulated way of raising funds for a new business venture, but because of their popularity to avoid costs of regulatory compliance and intermediaries, ICOs are highly preferred.

How to find the best ICOs and blockchain projects?

Initial Coin Offerings were very favorable for the early contributors but they come with huge risks, hence, many ICOs failed by the beginning of this year. Even with a million percent return on investment, over 90 percent of the ICOs launched so far were not able to keep up with the pace or make profit.

However, since the ideology around digital tokens is unfamiliar and brand new, it is sometimes quite difficult to identify the reliable early stage blockchain projects. Top ICO List exists to assist ICO contributors to find the best open ICO offers by actively screening through several proposals and choosing the best ones to be presented on our website. To make it even easier, we prepare a rating and a written review for each ICO listed on the site to give deep insight about each ICO proposal, their strengths and concerns. This gives out symmetric information for free to the readers and the investor, and allows them to do their own research on the most attractive projects.

How to invest in ICOs?

Most of the ICOs are built on the Ethereum platform using the ERC20 protocol. There are also other platforms of transaction networks such as NEO, Qtum, Lisk, Komodo, Strat, ICX, and many others. ICO projects have their contribution dashboards that interested people can make use of to submit and receive relevant information. Most of the time contributors need to sign up for the ICO whitelist to reserve their share of the generated token pool.

In addition, Know Your Customer (KYC) documentation is also usually required from the contributors in order to prevent money laundering. Each person submitting digital assets to the project need to confirm their identity to the project by sending over scans or photos of official Identification Documentation (ID). Whitelisted and KYC document submitted participants need to have a suitable transaction network wallet and tokens that the ICO accepts as contributions against the token generation. The contributor submits the compatible wallet address information to the ICO and sends a desired amount of accepted tokens into a designated wallet address provided by the official communication channel of the ICO.

After the ICO technical team has confirmed that the incoming contribution matches a verified KYC document related wallet address, the contributor wallet gets rewarded with the promised amount of the project tokens. Sometimes the process from the end of the ICO to the date when the tokens are transferred to the contributors might take several weeks due to the programming work required in between.

It is quite evident how an ICO is useful and better because of its transparency, and self regulated systems, and no beneficiaries or underwriters lowering your profits anymore.

What is the Active ICO List?

In our ongoing ICO list you can find all the coins invested to this day. These ICOs are offered for a limited time only, so you have to rush before the ICO period ends. You can also have a check on the ending date for the ICO listed for each ICO on the ICO list.

What is the pre ICO list?

Pre ICO token sale is rather a new phenomenon in the crypto world. It is obvious from the word itself that pre-ICO allows the investors to buy tokens before the official crowdsale begins. Usually, the pre-ICOs offer tokens at a relatively lower price with an essential bonus, and the fund-raising target of the pre-ICO sale is often lower than the main ICO.

On the whole, pre-ICOs make use of separate smart contracts from the main ICO event in order to enable proper and easy account reconciliation and audit, and to avoid the mixture of pre-ICO funds with the main ICO funds.

Several projects are running Pre-ICOs to collect funds to finance the expenses incurred on launching the main ICO. Paid promo ads, strategic recruitment, and meet-up costs to awaken the interest of investors.

In launching pre-ICO token sale, transparency about the money raised and the number of tokens issued is crucial. A pre-ICO is a great investment opportunity for a quick buck, but it can still affect the project’s appeal and reliability when large amounts of tokens are at dips.

Our pre-ICO section is definitely one of our most exciting sections, and that is because the pre-ICO allows investors to buy tokens before the official crowdsale begins.

What is the Upcoming ICO list?

In the upcoming ICO listing you may find all the quality upcoming coins that will be launching soon in the future. The “Upcoming ICO” status does not mean that you will be able to invest yet, but, it is just to publicize it and form a community for pre sale and official token sale.

Whatever cryptocurrency interests you, you may join their telegram group and get yourself or your entity whitelisted to book your place in their ICO before it happens. By joining the whitelist you will be informed of the token sales, even before the general public.

What is ICO rating?

ICO rating is an analytical rating that is given to ICOs on the basis of scores the ICO earns on a wide-array of metrics. These metrics mostly revolve around team, business plan, coin features, supply, goals, roadmap, pricing, private vs public sale ratios, and their whitepaper. There are other metrics that collectively help in rating an ICO.

How does Coin Market ICO measure up against the competition?

It might seem biased, but we believe we have the best ICO list for crypto investors. However, other popular ICO listing sites include Coin Schedule, ICO Alert, ICO Hot List, ICO Drops, ICO Bench and ICO Watch List.

Coin Market ICO is unique because of its rigorous curation which makes it easier to find the best, in-depth ICO analyses and reviews.

Want your ICO Listing on CMI?

Please submit your ICO for review at: https://coinmarketico.com/submit-ico/