Private companies who want to grow further raise funds deploying various strategies to bring in investments to their firms. Some prefer to fetch loans from financial institutions, and some try to raise finance through individuals or financial entities by selling their ownership stakes. Companies looking for bigger expansions seek public involvement and sell their shares through Initial Public Offerings (IPOs).
Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) resemble IPOs in the cryptocurrency industry. They, too, are utilized to raise capital for a company with expansion plans. The respective companies offer ICOs through the coins, or app or their services. The buyers invest their fiat money or exchange other digital tokens to purchase them; they are offered the ICOs in return.
Reasons behind ICOs popularity
ICOs are generally backed up by the supporters of the startups like a crowdfunding venture. But more correctly, ICOs offer monetary returns to their supporters, unlike crowdfunding and thus can be referred to as crowd sales.
The main reasons for their massive acceptance are mentioned below:
- ICOs are decentralized
- They are highly unregulated
- Benefits of both parties
- Profits have high margins
- The more the funds received, the more the value of token increases in general
- Sometimes the prizes of tokens are pre-fixed and no of tokens increases
Popular ICOs in trends
- Tokens in the Video Gaming Industry
- Tokens in Social Networking sites
- Blockchain-based services
Tokens in the Video Gaming Industry
The gaming industry dominates this space, with approximately 40% ICOs being offered in this sector as gaming is popular among all generations for its entertainment value. Industry experts believe that by 2021, the video gaming industry will grow up to $180.1 billion and so the markets will witness a rise of 10.3 % within 2017-2021.
Tokens in social networking sites
The popularity of microblogging sites is consistently on the rise across the world. Apart from the giant social networking platforms, several community-based forums and platforms are popping up every second day. Most of the users are ready to interact via these sites and respond tremendously to any new appealing concept. So tokens have great potential for mass acceptance in this domain.
Blockchain-based services
As the blockchain-based services are sprawling across every possible industry, widely blockchain applied sectors like finance, health, logistics, transport, trade, etc. covers 10% of the markets share.
Apart from the entertainment, the health and wellbeing industry, or, more specifically, the fitness industry is on boom this year.
Limitations of ICOs and solutions
The euphonious surge of ICOs’ turned the attention of regulatory authorities across the globe. Few countries like China have restricted the use of digital tokens in their markets. Also, Twitter, Facebook, and Google have banned the advertisements in 2018 as a preventive measure to curb fraudulent activities or ICO scams.
However, through proper channel recommendations and advisory services, tokens can be purchased.
Across the globe, there are more than 450 crypto startups and many more are in a row to start. More than 1500 cryptocurrencies exist so far, but a still considerable amount of failure can be witnessed in ICOs due to increased competition and certain other aspects. Firms like BlockchainMarketingNinja, thus provide an extensive marketing strategy to promote ICOs to reach to the targeted niche market. They offer exclusive services with its proven expertise in the strategic marketing of ICOs. They offer marketing support to blockchain projects, crypto startups in ICO marketing and promotions.
