How Businesses Can Use ICO As A Marketing Tool

The vogue of ICO is off to a great start and it is largely in trends these days. Indeed, many startups are seeing it as a great way to kickstart their business. For those who are not familiar with this term, Initial Coin Offering or simply ICO is an unregulated way of fundraising, especially for a new cryptocurrency venture. The process involves raising money from the public via crowdfunding campaigns in which investors get returns in the form of new digital coins.

If a startup plans to raise money for a cryptocurrency venture through ICO, the first and foremost requirement is a white paper specifying the project details. It must specify the financial requirements i.e. funds distribution for the project.

During the ICO, investors buy some of the crypto coins with a fiat currency in the same way they buy shares of a company in an Initial Public Offering. In case the ICO fails to fulfill the minimum financial requirements of the firm, smart contracts return the money to investors. Otherwise, if it succeeds, the funds raised in an ICO come into use to execute the plan, and the profits get shared with investors as mentioned in the white paper.

Growing Popularity of ICO

An ICO runs at the early stages of a project launch. It may be initiated even before the project infrastructure is finalized. Nevertheless, it provides a simple and easy way for companies to raise funds for a cryptocurrency venture.

ICOs are increasingly finding use in the development of open-source Blockchain and cryptocurrency projects. A number of companies have raised a whopping sum of money through these ICOs. Since January 2017, more than $2 billion has been raised through the Initial Coin Offerings.

Business Benefits of ICO

ICO provides a number of benefits, not only for the investors but also for the consumers. It provides a high level of liquidity as the tokens have liquid markets on cryptocurrency exchanges. Some of these tokens can exceed up to $100 million in just 24 hours cycle.

Also, anyone can run ICO to raise funds for launching a new token. You can easily create these tokens through various platforms such as Ethereum, Stellar, Omni, Wave, and Counterparty. The tokens come into limelight over the internet to reach potential buyers with marketing.  Either, you can do ICO through by developing a company’s own website. Or there are plenty of online forums, social bookmarking, ad posting, and social media websites  to do the same. It can be the fastest way of fundraising especially for a Cryptocurrency startup. As time goes by, we’ll start to see the startling aspects of this emergingmaking method of fundraising.