There are many factors that contribute to the success of ICOs. It could be the distributed ledger technologies upon which they are primarily founded or the ease with which they can be moved across international and governmental borders. Despite the increase in ICOs, “the bitcoin explosion” left a gap that hasn’t been filled. What will be “the next bitcoin,” or who will it be? What will the cryptocurrency industry’s next big thing be? Maybe the future will make it clear.
We suggest that you carry out the proper research and study the company’s white paper if you have any interest. To help with your investigation, you may wish to check into the most successful ICOs. So let’s discuss the 7 most successful ICO initiatives that have, in no particular order, generated results with a certain degree of success:
What Is An ICO?
The road to growth for conventional businesses is very predictable. Most businesses start off modest and grow as their profits rise. Companies usually turn to outside investment via transferring a portion of ownership in exchange for a quick infusion of cash. And businesses frequently “go public,” or give a share of the business (also known as stock) to investors on the open market in exchange for their money, by way of an Initial Public Offering, or IPO.
An Initial Coin Offering (ICO) is essentially comparable to a traditional initial public offering (IPO) in the world of cryptocurrencies. Companies raise money for their projects through ICOs, often referred to as crowd sales / token sale occasions, by releasing cryptocurrency to prospective buyers in the shape of crypto tokens.
What Factors Contribute to an ICO’s Success?
So, during the past several years, the ICO industry has experienced incredible growth. But what were some of the factors that contributed to this story’s success?
1. Utility
Whether the coin genuinely has good utility is one of the key success factors for an ICO. Although ICO specialists may disagree on a number of points, most concur that coin must be more than a thing that can be purchased and traded on an exchange. The top-performing ICOs are distinguished from the countless others languishing fruitlessly in wallets or even on exchanges by their fundamental utility.
An excellent way to demonstrate the usability of the ICO is to provide potential investors with a demo (or perhaps a visual model) that shows how the proposed enterprise will operate and what advantages it will provide. Furthermore, if the project is just a rehash of previous ideas, the ICO still may fail even if the coin represents a key part of the venture it is intended to support. Additionally, a reliable ICO launching platform that unites various stakeholders and offers a central dashboard can aid in ideation & customer acquisition and increase the likelihood of its success.
2. Solid Marketing, PR & Communication Strategies
Even the most innovative concept can fall short if the launch team’s PR, marketing, and communication efforts are shoddy. The likelihood of success can increase significantly if the marketing plan is comprehensive as well as the information is conveyed in an understandable manner, such as what specific problem the ICO’s project seeks to tackle. Webpages, white papers, e-newsletters, and social media accounts that are clear, succinct, and free of jargon can all be helpful in this regard. In fact, one of the main factors influencing an ICO’s influence and, consequently, its ultimate success, is its website and Alexa Rank (a measure of a website’s popularity).
3. Community Support
ICOs which are active in social media & discussion forums are likely to succeed more than those that aren’t, according to several analysts who’ve already studied past successful ICOs. Successful ICOs have, according to research by the cryptocurrency startup RAD Lending Inc., 4000-5471 Twitter/Facebook followers. Additionally, ICO teams who interact with the public on websites like Quora, Reddit, and Telegram tend to attract a larger audience of potential backers and thus have access to a larger pool of funding.
4. ICO Audits To Increase Trustworthiness
Companies that have their initial coin offerings (ICOs) audited by independent auditing advisories convey their inherent reliability to potential investors because many fraudsters and con artists occasionally utilize ICOs as a weapon to prey on overeager and ignorant investors. These audits may reveal possible problems with the ICO, such as with its corporate governance, financial model, or projections. More importantly, audits provide investors confidence, helping them see the ICO as a “non-scam” and increasing their willingness to contribute.
Some Benefits of an ICO
The benefits for all parties involved are the reason that ICOs have become more and more popular. A lot of the perks for contributors also apply to founders. These advantages motivate more participants to put their money in ICOs rather than alternative options, at the very least.
1. Liquidity
Lack of liquidity is a common barrier for people seeking new investing opportunities. Capital is often unreachable for years in many possibilities. With ICOs, investors have great liquidity as well as the secondary market, which implies that real-time price is based on the project’s current value.
2. Decentralization
Everyone may be able to participate in ICOs, especially if they take bitcoins. For the majority of ICOs, the contributors’ ability to transfer money in time to make a purchase is the only prerequisite.
3. Openness
ICOs not only let anyone invest; donors can also invest whenever they choose. Contrary to conventional models of startup finance, this makes it practically impossible to be an early investor if you don’t have a personal relationship with one of the founders.
Read also: What are Some of the Benefits of an ICO?
ICOs have a lot of reasons attributed to their success. Be it the distributed ledger technologies on which they are mostly based or the fact that they can be transferred easily across national and jurisdictional boundaries. Despite the spike in ICOs, there is still a void left after “the bitcoin explosion” that remains unfulfilled. Who or maybe what is going to be “the next bitcoin”? What will be the next big thing in the crypto world? Perhaps the future will reveal it. We advise you to conduct your due diligence and read the white paper of the company you’re interested in. However, you might want to look into ICOs that closely resemble successful ICOs of the past to aid your analysis.
So now as we discussed most of the ICO info, let’s discuss 7 most successful ICO initiatives that have, in no particular order, generated results with a certain degree of success:
NEO (formerly Antshares)
NEO is an open-source Chinese blockchain project that goes by many different names. Perhaps the most common among them are Antshares, the former official title, and the nickname China’s Ethereum. NEO not only utilizes smart contract applications but also decentralized commerce & digitized assets and identification.
The company gathered huge support from the Chinese government, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Alibaba, and other major companies. And as a result, was able to launch a successful ICO. NEO has provided exceptional ROI for many early investors and is a non-profit, community-driven blockchain project aiming to create a “Smart Economy.”
Stratis
This Stratis platform is a U.K.-based company that wishes to streamline business processes. Simultaneously reducing the complexity of Blockchain adoption and implementation. Stratis is one of the only platforms enabling full-stack utilization of Microsoft’s .NET Core Framework. The Stratis platform is well adaptable with multiple programming languages. It enables businesses to seamlessly create, design, and deploy custom applications without setting up or maintaining their own infrastructure. Furthermore, Stratis has made significant efforts to ensure that developers who lack previous experience can quickly pick up and become proficient with Blockchain technology.
Ethereum
Now this list could be complete without the mention of Ethereum. It’s the closest thing crypto has seen that resembles the bitcoin explosion.
But unlike Bitcoin, just a cryptocurrency, Ethereum is a digital currency and the foundation for decentralized applications that use smart contracts. It has seized the corporate world’s interest, and an Ether token now sits at a whopping $713.
Ethereum is deployed in various applications and still has massive potential for innovation left untapped.
ICO DATES
Jul 22, 2014 – Sep 2, 2014
CURRENT STAGE Trading
FUNDING
For Sale59.03M
ICO Price – $ 0.31
ROI4,137.54x USD103.70x BTC1.00x ETH
Softcapn/a
Hardcapn/a
Raised – $ 18.30M
Ark
ARK aspires to give ideas of passionate users, a perfect foundation, and a growing ecosystem.
The digital currency platform offers several proprietary features, one being SmartBridge. This is a lightning-fast ecosystem that allows for the quick integration of other cryptocurrencies into its own blockchain.
It’s a distinguished team of 15 core members from 11 countries coming together to curate a place for all blockchain enthusiasts.
ICO DATES
Nov 7, 2016 – Dec 11, 2016
CURRENT STAGE Trading
FUNDING
For Sale 0.00
ICO Price – $ 0.00995394
ROI –36.79x USD1.48x BTC0.24x ETH
Raised – $ 22.00M
Lisk
Now, Lisk is an ICO popular amongst the Programmer’s community. And rightly so! It’s built with Javascript and many of the key players from Ethereum. Lisk is the first modular blockchain-based application platform with an SDK providing developers with a set of tools, allowing them to create their own apps and run them on sidechains. Streamlining the process of creating blockchain applications is easy. Their modular design enables you to realize any blockchain technology use case.
Alias ICO
Alias is one kind of innovative privacy-focused cryptocurrency, formerly known as Spectrecoin. Its core objective is to protect users’ privacy. Hence, they have purpose-built this ICO with a unique integration of Tor to always protect your real IP when you run the software. All of this aims to achieve real transactional anonymity.
Cardano ICO
Cardano was founded/launched by one of the co-founders of Ethereum, Charles Hoskinson. The internal cryptocurrency is ADA and debuted with a market cap of $600 million.
Cardano also happens to be the largest cryptocurrency to use a proof-of-stake blockchain. Solidified its position as the biggest proof-of-stake cryptocurrency in May 2021 by reaching a market cap of $77 billion. One of the most distinguishing features of Cardano is its applications. Hoskinson began working with electronic dance music DJ Paul Oakenfold to release a full-length album titled Zombie Lobsteron the Cardano blockchain. In 2021 IOHK and the Ethiopia Ministry of Education also announced plans to launch an identity and record-keeping system on Cardano for the country’s five million students.
Conclusion
Mastercoin performed the first token sale (often known as an ICO) in July 2013. After that, they saw a decline, but they then experienced a resurgence in 2017. Initial coin offerings only have increased since that time. ICOs are excellent business financing and fundraising instrument. But as the saying goes, “it’s better to be secure than sorry.” You should therefore do so at your own risk. Watch out for con artists that attempt to use ICOs to carry out fraudulent operations.
Disclaimer: Please note that the information contained herein is not intended to be a source of advice or credit analysis with respect to the material presented, and the information contained in this blog does not constitute investment advice.
