ICO Archives

What is an ICO? BitcoinIRA.com explains.

Posted on March 6, 2018 | by [email protected]

An ICO is an initial coin offering. It borrows the phrase from IPO (initial public offering), however, it functions quite differently. While IPOs are typically launched by companies with a significant history — the average age of a company going public was 11 years in 2014 — ICOs are most often fundraising efforts for new entities.

How Do ICOs Work?

Typically an ICO raises money for a new startup by giving early adopters the chance to buy in on something they perceive to have future worth. Investors buy new tokens, which are built on top of an existing blockchain networks such as Ethereum, with the hope those tokens will increase in value.

Have Past ICOs Been Successful?

In 2017, as interest in cryptocurrency reached new heights, there were more opportunities than ever to buy into ICOs. However, according to a Fortune report in February, 2018, these had a high rate of failure. Forty-six percent of 902 tracked ICOs from last year failed completely and an additional 13 percent essentially disappeared.

The magazine is quick to note that traditional startups backed by venture capital also have a significant failure rate, possibly as high as 75 percent. That statistic comes from an analysis of more than 2,000 Venture-backed companies between 2004 and 2010. Taken in context, the collapse of ICOs does not seem as bad. However, the rate is still striking, given the relatively new phenomenon of initial coin offerings. Although an ICO may offer strong returns, success depends largely on the strength of the individual endeavor.

Strong Alternatives

While ICOs are an exciting new venture, it’s important to recognize that they come with a high degree of risk. If you’re looking to invest in cryptocurrencies, consider the many different routes available.

One route is Bitcoin futures, which make it possible to trade on Bitcoin’s value without holding actual Bitcoin. Well-known investment houses such as CME Group and CBOE which recently offered products to invest in Bitcoin futures announced plans to expand to other cryptocurrencies.

If you’re interested in investing in cryptocurrency and looking to diversify your retirement portfolio, BitcoinIRA.com connects consumers to qualified custodians, digital wallets and cryptocurrency exchanges that allow individuals to purchase digital currencies. Funds are kept in BitGo cold storage wallets, the leader in multi-signature encryption technology. In 2017 alone, BitcoinIRA.com customers saw a 172% return on investment. To learn more, call us today at 877-936-7175.

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Here are the biggest ICOs of 2017 (Updated: October 2017)

Posted on July 28, 2017 | by [email protected]

It has been one initial coin offering (ICO) breaking a record after another. Author and investor William Mougayar estimates that in June, early stage internet related start-ups raised $601 million capital from ICOs. That is $51 million more than what traditional venture capital provided in the same month.

Mougayar has become some kind of expert in ICO especially after he organized the 2017 New York Token summit in May. The event dedicated to ICOs attracted a large turnout from entrepreneurs, developers and investors. Several start-ups that have benefited from token crowdsales exhibited their projects.

The trend of record setting in ICO crowdsales will only accelerate in July with the largest ICO ever witnessed in the month. The following is a list of the five largest ICOs of 2017 so far starting with the highest.

Filecoin – $250 Million (and counting)
Filecoin is blockchain data storage network that launched on August 10, 2017. Filecoin will use peer-to-peer InterPlanetary File System, or IPFS, to store and secure data, which will allow users to earn by donating their free hard drive storage space. Its only competition will be MaidSafe, another decentralized storage project. Filecoin raised $200 million from accredited investors and another $52 from venture capital firms. As of August 21, over $250 million in funds had been raised.
Tezos – $232 Million
Tezos is a new a blockchain that fixes the governance issues that blockchains like bitcoin face. Instead of relying on off-chain debates, compromises and consensus to improve, scale or change the core software, Tezos has self-governance mechanism built into the protocol.The Tezos ICO launched on July 1. At the end of the 14-days sale period, the project had raised about $222 million in bitcoin and ether. That became the new ICO record.
EOS – $183 Million (and rising)
Block.one is a start-up building a blockchain that meets the specific needs of the businesses and companies in the corporate world. It plans to provide blockchain solutions that offer efficiency, security and data integrity. The start-up carried out its ICO in June to support the project development. Its EOS tokens raised $183 million. That held the record until Tezos overtook it three weeks later.
Bancor – $153 Million
As more cryptocurrencies and tokens get into the crypto market, the need to transact and move value from one to another is growing. While current cryptocurrency and token exchanges facilitate the process, their centralized nature expose users to insecurity and don’t support all the tokens out there. Bancor seeks to build a decentralized exchange ecosystem that will enable holders of digital assets to trade peer-to-peer with ease and with little risk to the security of their assets. It will also support any token that is issued regardless of the number of users. Its June ICO raised $153 million.
Status – $108 Million
Status is a browser, wallet and a messenger app. It is also a gateway to decentralized applications that are built on top of Ethereum. The Status app will be available for mobile to enable on-the-go use. The team behind Status held an ICO on June 20^th and raise $95 million. With more start-ups choosing ICO and the public’s interest growing, at least some of the ICOs in this list might end up not being in the top five of the biggest ICOs in 2017. Even companies that have had little to do with blockchain until recently are now interested in ICO. For instance, the messaging App Kik has released a whitepaper explaining its plan to hold an ICO.

As ICOs continue to boom so does the market value of cryptocurrency. Bitcoin’s price is on the rise, along with other altcoins such as Ethereum, Ripple, and Litecoin. If you are ready to invest in crypto with your IRA, get started here.

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‘Apptrade’ is here to add technology to your portfolio, launches Crowdsale to attract investors

Posted on April 28, 2017 | by [email protected]

Bitcoin, Blockchain and cryptocurrencies have opened up a new realm of possibilities by accelerating and innovating traditional prospects. Amongst many prominent fields that was impacted by the internet’s analogue towards the first decade of the new millennium, trade finance and financial services are major beneficiaries. Cryptocurrencies made investing easy, hassle – free and low cost. This resulted in the advent of newer features like crowd funding and token sales that are now propelling businesses with new found innovation. One such case is ‘Apptrade’ where you can invest on the potentiality of applications. Let’s look into the details of Apptrade and the ongoing crowd funding:

What does ‘Apptrade’ do?

‘Apptrade’ is a platform which enables you to have apps in your portfolio and to trade in them like stockmarket. Hence it has been branded as the “Stockmarket of Apps” by Forbes. When linked, a portfolio of apps has the potential to become a competent asset whose value changes over time. By securing revenue streams, collaborative funding provides a financial innovation that facilitates access to value on a Decentralized Exchange. A value that can be bought and traded in the form of tokens that represent the growing value of the apps. Hence this leads to the creation of app portfolios backed by digital trust whose value increases once the app hits high levels of user base.

The infrastructure for holding digital portfolios:

Apptrade is powered by OpenLedger, as its parent company. Apptrade LLC is a part of OpenLedger Decentralised Conglomerate (DC). It is the world’s first blockchain powered conglomerate that allows its platforms to share resources and benefit mutually from network-based cross promotion. Ronny Boesing, CEO of OpenLedger believes that Apptrade is a simple way to buy, sell or invest in apps. Each portfolio consisting of apps, is designed to ensure that regular updates are being factored and the quality is ensured.

The Crowdfunding and options:

The start-up will offer its own token for their ICO called ‘APPX’. The token entitles investors to 20% of the net market value and revenue of the Apptrade portfolio ecosystem. The crowd sale was launched on February 28^th 2017 and understanding the value of the platform, OpenLedger decided to invest $100,000 themselves so as to own to show their belief in the project and reap profits out of its impending success. The Crowdfunding is set to end on 30^th of April and with the amount of potentiality the project has to offer, the ‘APPX’ tokens are getting sold out in quick time.

Bitcoin IRA: Initiating Coverage of APPX (Apptrade)

Posted on February 26, 2017 | by [email protected]

Apptrade is a profit sharing marketplace, described as “the stock market for apps” but instead of supporting one project, users can support multiple projects and have all the compliance and tracking automated via bitshares. The temporary tokens APPX.WARRANT representing the Apptrade master tokens, known as APPX will start to trade on the OpenLedger DEX immediately after the minimum threshold of 1 million USD has been achieved during the 61 days of the Apptrade Initial Token Offering (ITO) on February 28th, 2017.

Similar to how Ether tokens were issued during a crowd sale, then redeemed into Ethereum (ETH) on a 1 to 1 basis once their network was launched, the temporary token APPX.WARRANT will convert 1:1 to the Master Apptrade token APPX, once the Apptrade network goes live.

The estimated timeframe for conversion of WARRANT.APPX to the final asset on a 1:1 basis, will occur in 12 months post token crowd sale or earlier if the project is ready and tested ahead of schedule.

The OpenLedger Decentralized Exchange (DEX), the platform acts as the foundation for a Decentralized Conglomerate; an ecosystem of interlinked and mutually-supporting companies. By using the Graphene toolkit, crypto companies can develop applications or services on top of the framework.

Bitcoin IRA: Initiating Coverage of APPX (Apptrade) from BitcoinIRA

From ICO’s to OpenLedger’s plans: Ron Boesing opens up at CoinAgenda 2016

Posted on November 8, 2016 | by [email protected]

Las Vegas recently hosted CoinAgenda 2016. It is a conference for both the mainstream who are new to Bitcoin and Blockchain investments and experienced investors in digital and blockchain assets to come together. In this edition, Ron Boesing, CEO of OpenLedger and Bitcoin exchange CCEDK revealed the future plans for OpenLedger. From a successful career in the music industry to a switch to digital asset based investments, Ron has been relentless. Let’s look into the key takeaways from the interview:

The major switch

Ron Boesing was in the music industry for about 25 years. The financial crisis of 2008-09 hit the music industry hard leading to the closure of Ron’s record company. After two years of contemplation, Ron went back to college to take a bachelors course in ‘Export Technology Management’. In late 2014, he actually came in contact with Bitcoin and an old friend proposed the idea of establishing an exchange. In collaboration, they launched the first Bitcoin exchange out of Denmark (CCEDK). During the course of his cryptocurrency ventures, Ron fondly recollects that the journey was a continuous learning curve.

Currently OpenLedger has completed a year slowly phasing out CCEDK as planned. The idea was to make OpenLedger the gateway for fiat and cryptocurrency making it a decentralized exchange.

Traditional IPO vs ICO

When asked about how these ICO’s would differ from traditional IPO’s, Ron made it very clear that in ICO’s, the investors have an easy exit option. This means apart from investing, there is an option to move the funds from one cryptocurrency to another as a backup contingency. Ron explained that unlike other ICOs this doesn’t require a crowdfunding investment. It rather revolves around only investing in ICO’s and gaining the privileges. With the facility to the move the funds around, Ron believes it would resemble a cryptocurrency index.

OpenLedger’s ICOs

Talking about the token sale of the projects OpenLedger would be associated with, Ron gave preliminary information about the same:

Beyond The Void: This would be OpenLedgers collaboration with gaming industry. The tokens can be ordered on OpenLedger or directly from Beyond The Void.

Centz: Centz enables full control over individual’s Gift Card Money via OpenLedger ICO. This would essentially allow for transfer and buying of requisite Gift Cards suitable for individual’s occasion.

Apptrade: This has an entirely new approach to developing and managing next generation of mobile apps. The underlying idea behind this is to create a ‘Stock Market of Apps’

With so many interesting prospects coming up, Ron looks hopeful about OpenLedger’s chances at enabling complete decentralization.

The confluence of Blockchain and MOBA gaming – ‘Beyond The Void’

Posted on November 1, 2016 | by [email protected]

The beauty of cryptocurrencies and their underlying technology lie in the multitude of applications they offer. They can imbibe to any existing technology to give us a transformed output that might change the way we look at it completely. One such arena, which invites ledger based technology with open arms, would be gaming. The gaming industry has a huge market cap with Multiplayer Online Battle Arena leading from the front. This genre has heavy vested investments and features in eSports (video game competitions) with heavy prize money. With so much at stake, ‘Beyond The Void’, a new ‘free-to-play’ RTS-MOBA game can storm the gaming industry. This game kicks of with a token crowd sale with tokens as rewards for players. Let’s dive deep into the launch dynamics of the game:

The MOBA Market worth:

The net worth of MOBA market in 2016 was around $20 Billion with major market share concentrated in the east. League of Legends leads this market with a market share of whooping 66%. Next in line is DOTA 2 with market share of 14%. These games are more in control of the developers having quantized costs and trading facilities for items.

Beyond The Void:

The multiplayer game debuts in November’s ‘Money2020’ and CoinAgenda industry events in Las Vegas. ‘Beyond The Void’ is launching a token crowd sale in partnership with decentralized conglomerate OpenLedger and crowdfunding group. The game aims to combine a blockchain based Initial Coin Offering with a blockchain token economy.

The vision behind the launch of this blockchain based game is to create a culture where the players own the ecosystem as much as the developers. The investors would benefit from this game in a unique fashion. These ICO tokens, named ‘Nexium’ will steadily burn over the time. The increasing scarcity of tokens increases their value. The game modifies itself such that as player base grows, so will the price of Nexium and blockchain assets.

Beyond The Void vs Traditional MOBA games:

The game is extremely competitive between players incite more growth in the growing e-sports space. It is free to play with major revenue streams being Nexium tokens, Ethereum blockchain assets, and player-owned economy. The game hopes to attract additional players with a player-driven economy. Players can own and trade buyable items in the game at will. Giving the players total control will create a whole new set of economic opportunities for players and the developers alike.

It would be interesting to note how this game would impact the MOBA industry and pave way for further Blockchain based games.

Explosive Growth in Chinese Blogging Community is a Good Sign For Token Sale

Posted on September 8, 2016 | by [email protected]

DECENT readies itself for token launch on September 10th

DECENT, the decentralized content platform developed for digital publishing is looking forward to successful launch two days from now on September 10th. Backed by a stronger community than ever in China, evidenced by their recent partnership with 8BTC.com (Global Alexa: 50,137), one of the more popular, if not most popular bitcoin sites in China, but the Founder of Microsoft Slovakia, Mr.Tibor Tarábek, recently gave his endorsement having this to say:

“I’ve heard a lot about Blockchain based projects in the recent months, but DECENT is the one that has caught my attention. Thanks to the comprehensive solution and variety of usage opportunities it has the potential to become the next big thing within data distribution processes worldwide.”

With an active developer community hosting meetups around the world and rooted in p2p and blockchain technology, DECENT is building a platform, that if successful, will be nothing short of a digital revolution. The founders’ vision is to create a fully integrated & trustworthy system of content distribution for the internet. This global platform will be secured and timestamped by a blockchain mechanism.

DECENT adoption and token Sale

A fully functional prototype will be launched during or soon after the token sale, otherwise known as an ICO or Intial Coin Offering. Though there are many other ICO’s that bitcoin investor’s have access to, we think DECENT, with it’s solid mission and active community is an ICO that shouldn’t be missed.

The DECENT Token (DCT) and it will be used for publishing and buying on the DECENT Platform. It will allow for individuals and organizations to buy, sell & share digital content without restrictions. A key feature of the token is that it also serves as anti-spam protection via a reward for miners (or publishers in this case publishers).

DECENT: Decentralized Open Source Content Distribution Platform

True innovation is rare, especially in the world of media. More difficult is to determine which aspect of media thrives for development most. Majority of mainstream media do not truly innovate as they are happy with their current business models. Most of the incumbents do not provide as many benefits to the content consumers as they could because of lack of incentives. Moreover, having the obligation to pass through a third party to access digital content is unnecessary.

Traditional media companies as Medium, New York Times or Daily Mail choose what they publish and which authors they allow to distribute their content through their fully controlled centralized for-profit platforms. Similarly, many jurisdictions do not provide freedom of speech; people are prosecuted for expressing their thoughts.

Source: DECENT Whitepaper

Tag: ICO