How does a cryptocurrency gain an initial value? Does it stick to blockchain’s underlying ethical principle - the democratic one that the authority lies with the public? Or is there someone or some group who decides its initial value?
Well, it works very much like an Initial Public Offering (IPO), where a private company releases stock to the public at a certain price, after much deliberation.
When a company goes public and offers its stock to the masses, it makes an IPO. It does this to raise capital and is typically carried out in the early stages of a company’s life. In exchange for stock in the company (and therefore a chance to profit), you make an investment corresponding to its initial valuation.
It is not different with an Initial Coin Offering, barring a few minor differences. It also shares a lot of similarities with crowdfunding.
What’s the Process Like?
When a new cryptocurrency venture decides to launch its new currency, it plans how much capital will be required and how many tokens necessary for it to be a successful venture.
When all has been decided, they open the project to the public, who make donations via fiat or digital currency. The amount received through this crowdfunding is entirely dependent on whether the funders see value in the cryptocurrency. As an example, Ethereum did well with its ICO partly because of the integration of smart contracts. Ethereum has over 50% of the market share in ICOs.
The Good and the Bad
ICOs have brought great disruption to the economy. While it has for the most part been genuine, there have been instances of fraud, so it does well to do research on the digital currency before participating. The lack of regulation has been one of the reasons why China has banned it.
There are plenty of good reasons to consider it though, both as an investor and as the entity making the offering. ICOs are commonly used by start-ups to raise capital for their business, which is common difficulty faced by them.
As a result of the lack of regulation, different countries have different policies that attempt to limit fraudulent activity. For instance, the United States requires celebrities to disclose the compensation paid for ICOs, while China has banned it entirely until the proper policy has been established.
The success of Ethereum’s ICOs have spurred other currencies to do the same. Today, Rootstock and Hivemind are much anticipated ICOs. EtherEx, which will be a part of the Ethereum ecosystem, is also expected to make an ICO. While no announcements have been made regarding any of these, it is expected as their nature is that of a token system. They’ve also got to make their initial distributions somehow.
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