Introduction to ICO Cryptocurrency - Everything You Wanted to Know but Were Afraid to Ask

ICO, short for Initial Coin Offering, has become hugely popular over the past few years given the potential to get huge returns off of your investments. Given that ICOs are relatively a new concept to most people, there is a lot of misinformation about it online. Here's a short introductory guide to ICO cryptocurrency, with everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask:

What is ICO Cryptocurrency?

ICO is a method of crowd-funding or fund-raising for start-ups, business ventures, projects or even development of new cryptocurrency (coded digital currency). Typically companies sell shares or other incentives such as pay dividends in exchange for the purchase of their cryptocurrency. Investors hope to profit at a later date by trading ICO cryptocurrency on the exchange as you would do with shares. Whilst ICOs are considered financial assets they are digital in nature but not governed by any central monetary agent. Instead, they are essentially decentralized, their generation being done wholly online following certain specific, yet secure criteria.

How Does One Participate in an ICO?

Typically, there is a registration process for the purchase of an Initial Coin Offerings and the process itself often requires some KYC (Know Your Customer) before being approved. Different ICOs have different registration processes. Bear in mind also that certain countries such as the United States, China, and Singapore are sometimes not allowed to participate in an ICO. Once the ICO is over, the cryptocurrency tokens or coins will be sent to your personal wallet and you can either hodl them or transfer them to an exchange to trade.

Pros and Cons

The digital nature of ICO cryptocurrency makes sending and receiving ICO tokens easy. But given the decentralized nature of cryptocurrency, ICOs do not have any official legal status and hence as such are currently not controlled by regulatory mechanisms. Therefore, there is a certain amount of risk by association. As with any other investment, it is recommended to do thorough research on the company and the ICO beforehand. The ICO-Check cryptocurrency list provides an exhaustive and well-researched list of ongoing and upcoming ICO for potential investors. The list has a lot of information not easily available elsewhere such as token supply, token pricing, private sale, pre sale and crowdsale info, token release date and much more to help you make informed decisions before participating in an ICO.

Ideally, you will not want to invest a significant amount of your portfolio in ICO cryptocurrency, unless you have a solid belief in the ICO's future performance. As ICO cryptocurrency is a fundraising initiative for a concept as opposed to a ready product, weigh market risks before investing. You will also want to participate in an ICO that is easily tradable, as not all ICO are accepted for trade on exchanges.

Ethereum has become the most popular go-to option platform for ICO launches given its overall relative ease of usage, automated features and built-in SMART CONTRACTS (secure, encrypted and cost-effective digitized contractual solutions). Other platforms to consider are Stellar and Waves.

The Future of ICOs

The interest in ICOs continues to increase with new Initial Coin Offerings promising to be the next hottest thing coming out of the woodwork on a daily basis. A lot of ICOs do tank halfway, never to rise again. But industry experts do agree on one thing, ICO cryptocurrency is definitely here to stay.