We are beginning to see a wave of businesses with proven use-cases and venture funding conduct public ICOs. Even VCs themselves are becoming cornerstone investors and conducting due diligence on ICOs.

This is positive for the market as we are leaving pre-revenue, pre-team, pre-product ICOs behind- which may offer too much risk to the market.

ICOs with successful and thriving platforms/ecosystems

I met Jamie and Violet from Lunch Actually Group a couple of months back. Their startup is essentially Asia’s first and largest dating company. Jamie described problems to me in his industry, among which are verification issues, love scams, privacy, stigmas etc. which can potentially hinder growth of his product.

Naturally, we converged at the same conclusion- that a blockchain based solution would solve entire issues. Only then did I learn that they have started the ball rolling on Viola.Ai, a blockchain-AI-driven marketplace for dating, courtship and marriage.

That Viola.ai can back up the talk is definitely understated. Their company registers record revenue growth and has a base of more than 1M users. In their case, the blockchain aspect solves an immediate need and improves their platform massively, introducing 1M users to blockchain technology. This is what mass adoption is about.

ICOs introducing a new crytomarket to their existing business model

Through a mutual shareholder, I met Dr Clemen Chiang, founder of Spiking, a leading financial markets signal app. Spiking has attracted venture funding from key investors, and amassed more than 120k users who use the platform religiously to follow trades in the stock markets.

What appealed to me was Dr Clemen’s forward thinking- he mentioned that millennials today are disinterested in traditional stock markets, and to ensure longevity of his product, he needs to enter the crypto markets as well. Forbes agrees with him.

He then devised a proprietary method to track ‘whale (big crypto investor) trades’ and is bringing his blockchain based solution to market through an ICO. In an early stage, Spikings ICO has already begun to make waves.

Compliant, sensible, engineered through entrepreneurial sweat and tears

The above two ICOs are not alone. Many entrepreneurs are launching vastly different blockchain solutions, but with a commonality- legitimacy of token sales, real-world validation and customer base.

This makes me optimistic for the future of blockchain and its associated ICOs. What a time to be alive!