What is ICO? Overview of the ICO investment process

What is ICO? What are the benefits of ICO investment for business people? These are the most searched questions in the strong development of cryptocurrencies. Along with Bitcoin and Ethereum, the trend of Coin investment is also increasing. Don't miss the helpful article below if you are new to ICO Coin.

1. What is ICO?

You often hear people talk about ICOs a lot. So do you know what ICO is the abbreviation for the word? That is Initial Coin Offering - A type of crowdfunding. The investor will provide a certain amount of money to the project in this form. The project will send the investor the corresponding amount of Coin at the specified exchange rate.

Before the ICO process, the project needs to fully disclose important information, including the amount of capital to be mobilized, the total amount of Coins issued, and the Coin rate.... Based on the data provided, will investors decide to contribute money?

2. How do ICOs work?

After you understand what is ICO, you need to know how it works. Specifically, startups will create and resell ICO Tokens. So what is ICO Token? This is the way Cryptocurrency is called in the ICO project. These tokens are similar in appearance and characteristics to many other cryptocurrencies.

Creating Cryptocurrency and starting an ICO is judged to be simple. ICOs usually take place on the Ethereum network. A kind of modern data security network and the foundation of ICOs. You can create your own Coin using Ethereum Smart Contract. Because the software behind Ethereum and Bitcoin is set up as open source.

An ICO is a computer protocol capable of transferring electronic assets between parties under specific commercial regulations. Customers find it difficult to work with many troublesome codes, and companies will assist you for a small fee.

Investors will buy new coins or tokens from the developers of Bitcoin or Ether - the digital electronic currency of the Ethereum network. The purchased Tokens are exclusively used on the computing service built by the developers.

For example, A project on an online movie broadcasting service can sell Tokens to customers before the official launch. However, convincing investors to agree to spend money to buy Tokens is not easy because many startups went bankrupt before the currency was appreciated.

3. What are the opportunities when investing in ICO?

Traders always want to get as much profit as possible when investing. The user has perfect project prediction and analysis ability. This helps investors see the future of the price of the Cryptocurrency after it is listed on the exchange. Here are some of the opportunities that ICO investment clients can receive.

3.1 Get a High Profit

This is considered the most significant opportunity for ICO to attract potential customers. ICO investors buy Tokens hoping that the project will be successfully launched and developed in the future. If this happens, then the value of the Tokens in the ICO will go higher than the original price, and they will make a profit.

Ethereum and Ripple have proven that you can become a millionaire overnight, thanks to ICO projects.

3.2 Diversifying Portfolio

Investing in ICOs is also a method to help you diversify your investment portfolio. ICO brings many good opportunities for investors to easily own new Tokens, capable of strong growth in the future at low cost.

3.3 High Utilities

Tokens issued through ICOs are often accompanied by additional utilities such as the right to vote - vote administration, enjoying a portion of the profits from the project, or special access to products and services. Service from the supplier.

3.4 As a Potential

Investment Early investors have access and more liquidity during the ICO period. This is a good time for customers to own new cryptocurrencies with low cost and a high potential for increasing value. The decision to invest in an ICO early contributes to the potential for rapid capital growth.

Read more: What is IEO? How to invest IEO to achieve the highest efficiency

4. What are the risks when investing in ICO?

Advantage and risk are always two concepts that coexist in every investment. Mainly when you invest in cryptocurrencies. In addition to the great opportunities, the ICO also has the following risks:

4.1 Legal risks

This is probably the problem that makes investors and the project think the most. Legal restrictions may result in breaking the law. Therefore, if you want to invest in ICO, learn carefully before putting money down.

Unlike IPOs, ICOs are mainly supported by investors in the community. The project is not managed by organizations and has no verification or protection.

4.2 Risk of no paper binding

Unlike securities, when investing in shares, your property will be protected by law. When you buy ICO, the Coins will still be returned to your regular account but are not covered by the law. The transactions of capital contribution and purchase of coins will also not have any documents. After successfully raising capital, if the development team takes that money and runs away, the player will lose everything.

4.3 Risk of price manipulation

The greater the possibility of being manipulated for coins with a smaller trading volume. A coin with a trading volume of about 100 million in a day, you will own at least 100 million. This means that you can value the Coin based on the price technique.

This creates conditions for a wrong individual or organization holding a large enough amount of virtual currency to easily manipulate the price.

4.4 Security risks

If you regularly update the news, you are probably not unfamiliar with articles about hacking content that take a lot of money,... However, according to the comments on ICO projects, the original reason investors lose money is due to the lack of care in securing their information.

5. Does ICO investment need a lot of money?

"Does ICO investment need a lot of money?" This is the question that many newcomers to the virtual currency investment market are most interested in. In general, each ICO project will have a different pricing policy depending on its nature. The minimum amount to invest in an ICO usually ranges from $10 to $100 or 0.02 ETH to 1 ETH.

Many projects will not limit the maximum number of Tokens you can buy. But with projects that receive a lot of attention from customers, the ICO will usually limit the maximum number to ensure that the most investors will buy the Token.

Information about investment capital is recorded in the Whitepaper or on the project's website, and please follow along.

You should keep in mind that only the amount you are willing to lose is due to the price fluctuations of Token caused by market demand and not by the actual success of the product. The success of cryptocurrencies going through ICO will never be able to guarantee you a profit for several months. Instead, you need to wait for a long time.

Investing in ICOs is not determined by the number of points but by how many times you will multiply that number and for how long. Be a smart trader to get the profit you want.

6. What is the mindset required when investing in ICO?

Bitcoin investment in general, and ICO, in particular, is a type of business with great difficulty, requiring players to have a lot of experience. Please follow the following criteria to assess whether you are suitable to participate in ICO investment.

• Have faith in Bitcoin and the Cryptocurrency market: Whatever you want to invest in. You need to have confidence in the market first, then believe in your ability to make money from this market. Without trust, you will not feel comfortable in your investment decisions. This makes your investment not achieve the desired effect.
• Courage, dare to take risks: ICO investment is considered a risky game, so if you are a safe person, you will need to think carefully before starting or can choose an investment field. More secure.
• Have enough patience: Success is a long process. It is not a day or two that your investment will be increased. You need to practice patience to become a financial expert in ICO investment.
• To learn, diligently cultivate knowledge: The Cryptocurrency market has a dizzying speed of change. Thousands of news and new information are updated every day. If you want to adapt to this super-fast change, you need to be willing to learn and regularly update your knowledge to be outdated.

7. How do we increase the chances of participating in ICO?

Investing in ICO is not tricky, but ICO effectively improves the success rate. Here is a guide to ICO investment and help you get the most profit.

7.1 Choose a good project and dev team

The first secret to effective ICO investment is analyzing and selecting a quality project and Dev team. The practicality of the project is an essential factor in determining success.

The ICO project needs to have cohesion with the community and solve problems for society, and the success rate will be higher. This task requires participants to have expansive vision and knowledge.

In addition, you need to be interested in projects with the same ecosystem to analyze their advantages and disadvantages. If possible, find out the projects that have gone bankrupt before to know the causes and manipulate the market.

7.2 Stop loss at the right time

ICO investment is difficult to avoid unexpected problems. Risks always exist, and you must learn to accept and manage those risks. In ICO, people use the concept of Stop Loss - stop loss to control risk.

7.3 Always have faith in the market

If you have decided to invest in an ICO, trust you in the virtual currency market because this market always has unexpected fluctuations. Without trust, you will not be strong enough to wait for your virtual currency to appreciate. Be persistent, don't give up. You will get the expected result.

8. The difference between ICO and IPO

IPO is known as the method of capital contribution by buying part ownership of the company. An ICO calls for investment from the early stages of a project without owning shares. Please refer to the following comparison table to better distinguish between ICO and IPO.

9. Stages required to develop an ICO project

An ICO project needs to go through many stages, from preparation to investment. Specifically, the construction steps of a new ICO will include the following steps.

9.1 Step 1: Set up ICO

The initial founder just formed an idea and presented a clear plan and roadmap to investors. To help customers have a clear view of the project, a Whitepaper will be designed with complete information about the project and the ecosystem, and future development potential.

Setting up ICO is quite simple. The project manager set up a website and publicly updated the Whitepaper. Investors will access the project's homepage and track the information they are interested in.

9.2 Step 2: Building an ecosystem

This is when the ICO project applies Blockchain technology to create tokens for its project. Usually, ICO Tokens will be made using Ethereum's Blockchain technology according to the ERC-20 standard. In the case of owning own Blockchain technology, the project will be released.

9.3 Step 3: Crowdfunding

This is a critical stage, directly impacting the project's popularity in attracting investors. Founders will try to put up ICO lists on large communities such as Coinmarketcap, Coingecko, and Binance Smart Chain…

Next, investors proceed to develop Token gift policies for referrers to attract as many people as possible to participate in the ecosystem the better.

9.4 Step 4: Listing (Index)

After implementation, the ecosystem is built at a basic level, and then the project will be listed on the exchange to increase the trading volume for Tokens. This is the time when the Tokens will be very high in price. Investors who do not dare to take risks early will invest in buying Tokens at the index stage to minimize possible risks.

10. Steps to evaluate an ICO project

After understanding what is ICO and the opportunities that ICO investment brings to investors, you must be more or less thinking about buying Tokens and waiting for the day. That the price of the virtual currency goes up. However, to succeed in this market requires you to have skills in evaluating and selecting potential projects. The following is an evaluation of an ICO project that you can apply in your search for an ICO Token investment project.

10.1 Find out about projects preparing for ICO

To be sure of the information about the project, you need to read all the Whitepaper pages on the official homepage of that project. You should choose FOMO projects worldwide, not just developed in a few countries.

To learn more about projects, investors can follow forums and communities specializing in sharing ICO information, such as: CryptoCompare, CyberFund, CoinSchedule, ICO Countdown, ICO List, ICO Tracker, ICO Timeline, Private Market… and especially groups on the Telegram app.

10.2 Evaluating the Potential of an ICO Project

The success of an ICO project is a combination of many different factors. Specifically, the components that make up a successful project include:

10.2.1 Project development team

If you regularly follow reviews of ICO projects, it is easy to recognize the commonality of specialized tasks. What is a career? That is a team of excellent and professional project development staff.

Before you learn about the profile review of a particular profile in Team DEV, take the time to check the Team Structure of that project first. To better understand the concept of team structure, please follow the following example:

Imagine that each football team will usually have 11 positions on the field, and these 11 positions will be divided into many different functions such as goalkeeper. Goalkeeper, Defender, Midfielder, Midfielder, Striker. A team is considered perfect if and only if the players in all these positions are strong and can coordinate well.

For the team structure, you can also understand the same as the above example, except that the positions in a strong team include: Industry understanding group, marketing team, finance team, Legal team, and technology team.

The CEO is the person who leads other positions and is knowledgeable about the industry. Besides, depending on the Platform, Protocol, or Dapps group project, the number of employees is allocated to each department accordingly.

10.2.2 Expert ideas

From a technical perspective, when reading about the development idea of ​​an ICO project, investors should classify ideas into 3 main groups: Platform, Protocol, and DAPps.

For each other group, you will have your evaluation criteria. Besides, the classification of information is necessary to help you accurately assess the project. Specifically:

• Platform: The team evaluates the project from a technology-based perspective. Typical representatives of the Platform group such as Ethereum, QTUM, ADA, NEO, NEM...
• Protocol: The assessment team synthesizes 3 factors, including technology, industry/field knowledge, and an idea's ecosystem. Typical representatives of the Protocol group are: Bee Token (BEE), 0x (ZRC), Dock.io (DOCK), Loopring (LRC),...
• Apps: The group focuses on solving the business problems of the ICO idea. Typical representatives of the DAPps group such as: Substratum (SUB), WABI (WABI), Quanstamp (QSP), Pundi X (NPXS),...

10.2.3 Expert advisor

An advisor is a person with working experience. years in a particular field. In the ICO, there will be 2 ways of thinking about choosing an Advisor:

• Option 1: Choose a public influence to efficiently raise capital. ICO does not care whether that person has any professional support for the team or not, just this person's face appearing on the website makes people believe in investing.
• Option 2: Choose the right person according to the team's expertise. The presence of an advisor will help all activities in the group go smoothly and develop more quickly. If you want long-term development projects, you should choose this 2nd option.

10.2.4 Strategic partnership A strategic

Partner is a reputable organization operating in a particular field with cooperation and mutual trust. However, many ICO projects are evolving to try to bring in as many strategic partners as possible despite being unrelated.

Therefore, when you research strategic partners of a project, besides looking at the names, you need to determine how these companies will cooperate and whether the relationship is reasonable. Are not? Is this cooperation beneficial for both parties? If the answer is yes, this is a good project sign.

10.2.5 Products

When performing analysis and evaluation of the product portion of ICO projects, you need to pay attention to 3 main types of products as follows.

• Whitepaper

It is only at the idea level, and there is no sign of product development. When there are so many ICO projects to invest in, you should not choose projects that only have a whitepaper without a sample product. Because your capital is limited while many projects call for you to invest, be thoughtful about putting your money in the right place.

• Proof Of Concept/ Demo/ Testnet

Products in this group often give customers higher confidence in Team DEV. Due to the projects that have formed Demo products and will plan to develop more realistically than projects with only Whitepaper.

A Demo version, although not 100% complete in terms of ideas. But at least it also shows investors the enthusiasm of Team DEV and the potential difficulties in the product development process. From there, you can plan future project development more realistically.

• Final Version

The final version is highly anticipated, but there are few projects in reality. Products in this group are usually finished. ICO only helps to make Sale Business faster.

10.2.6 Development Roadmap

When looking at the development roadmap of an ICO project, you need to be able to answer the following questions:

• Is the vision of this project likely to go far? If the field of vision is too short, it will not go far.
• Is this development path reasonable & feasible? If the plan is not possible, it will be challenging to execute.

10.2.7 Token

First, when you want to understand Token properly, you need to find out where the supply of this project comes from and how it will change. With demand unchanged, when the amount of Tokens decreases, the price of each Token will increase.

Conversely, if the number of Tokens increases, the cost of each Token will decrease. A project that is considered sustainable is one where the number of people who own Tokens to use them is higher to invest.

Signs that the number of tokens in circulation in the market is usually on an upward trend:

• Tickets sold during the Private Sale will be unlocked, and investors will flood.
• The ICO project self-issuing more Coins/Tokens
• The ICO project allows mining Coins, Proof Of Work, and Proof Of Stake.

10.2.8 Allocate for budget

A typical budget allocation plan will include a Product Development budget and a marketing budget. Depending on the nature of each project, the budget allocation method will be somewhat different.

Evaluating the budget allocation structure of an ICO project depends a lot on personal feelings. If the project is high-tech, then Product Development needs more investment. The task with a unique idea requires a lot of budget for the promotion campaign and market expansion.

10.2.9 Community

Currently, most ICO projects do not have a finished product. That is why the price of ICO Tokens depends mainly on the speculator group. This explains why there are many perfect projects, but the token price drops after the ICO is done.

Simply because the ICO project is not known to many people, the number of buyers is low, the demand is low, and the supply is high, so the price drops.

10.3 Signs to identify an ICO Scam

Currently, there are many ICO Scams on the market for illegal business purposes. It is unfortunate if you invest in some scam project. So how to avoid the situation of "money lost disability"? Watch for the signs of an ICO Scam below.

• An anonymous organization or individual: This is a sign of an ICO Scam. Because whether the founder's country legalizes ICOs or not, they always make their identity public. This is a must-have for every ICO project.
• Commit to paying a high price and attractive profit: This is a sign of a scam project that investors often encounter. Scam ICOs often promise to pay very high rates of return.
• There is no clear development roadmap: The absence of a development roadmap shows the short-term in the project development of the caller. As a result, there is no clear development path.

11. What is the strategy when participating in ICO investment?

Each business project, when formed, has its development strategy. So what is the ICO investment strategy? Which method is the most effective? Follow the 4 ICO strategies below to choose the one that suits you best.

11.1 Strategy 1: Buy ICO and hold until the project is successful

If really a big fan of Blockchain and Cryptocurrency. In addition to the solid and abundant capital, you should not rush to take profits. Because each project you invest in has a Hold time calculated in years.

If the ICO project is successful, the initial investment amount will be multiplied by a huge factor. However, if you hold the wrong project, the possibility of losing everything is very high.

11.2 Strategy 2: Buy ICO, sell out Tokens as soon as the price goes up

The followers of this strategy focus on capital turnover. Time is of the utmost importance to this group of people. They need to win the most deals in as short a time as possible.

11.3 Strategy 3: Buy the ICO, sell the portion corresponding to the invested capital, and keep the rest

You can compare this strategy #3 with the image of seeding. Let's say you have 100k. You bring investment into a project, and the amount increases 3 times. Then you withdraw 100k of principal and carry that seed to another project. Then your remaining 200k Token value will be held to die.

11.4 Strategy 4: Buy ICO, wait for Token to appreciate, sell larger than initial invested capital to collect both principal and interest, keep the rest

Strategy #4 is generally similar to Strategy #3. The only difference is that you can withdraw a part of the profit. This helps you feel secure when you have drawn both principal and interest, and the rest is the extra interest. Fortunately, the gain is more. Otherwise, the profit will increase very little.

11.5 Strategy 5: Capital Management

In investing, capital management is essential. Because this is weak to help you limit losses and maximize profits. Each investor has a different attitude in the process of managing their capital.

• Significant capital: You might consider risking more (<10%) of the asset volume per trade.
• The small amount of capital: You should participate in 5% of your money for each deal.

Capital management sounds simple, but it is challenging to do. To manage effectively, you need to be very disciplined. That is why many investors have failed.

Read more: What is IDO? Should I invest in IDO?

12. How to invest successfully in ICO

As you know, everything needs a secret to be successful. The same goes for ICO investments. Not only do you need to know what an ICO is? Understand what ICO investment is? But you also need to have the know-how from an effective ICO. Here is a way to invest in ICO successfully that you should refer to.

12.1 Diversify Your Portfolio

Any investment has the potential for surprises. Therefore, players need to diversify their investment portfolios to prevent risks.

12.2 Beware of "Scam" Projects

The scam is a susceptible concept that any business person wants to avoid. Players will be warned with different signs before the opportunity to cheat. Follow the criteria below to stay away from ICO scams.

12.2.1 There is no clear information about Team DEV

It must be admitted that every day hundreds of ideas are born. In it, there are entirely new ideas, and there are also ideas to copy. Anyone can come up with an idea. But not everyone is qualified to turn those ideas into actual services and products.

12.2.2 How to evaluate the performance of a person, a Team DEV?

The answer is to look at the project results they have done. At the same time, you need to find out who is the primary operator of that project. Any project that does not provide Team DEV information or intentionally Fake Profile is Red Flag, and you should stay away. Because it is most likely an ICO scam.

12.2.3 There is no intended use of the Coin

As you know, the Coin price in the Crypto market is governed by the law of supply and demand. If demand is more significant than supply, buying power is higher than selling. As a result, the price will increase.

Conversely, if the order is less than supply, then selling pressure is higher than buying, leading to a price drop.

What if the investor is not sure about the purpose of the Coin? Then it will be difficult for them to determine where the demand to buy Coin comes from. This makes it difficult for them to release news or a project announcement. Because they are not aware of how their Coin price is affected.

12.2.4 Sketchy whitepaper, incomplete content

Whenever it comes to Whitepaper, two things need to be clarified that investors are interested in, including:

• The more specific and detailed the project's information is, the better.
• The report helps investors understand the project clearly and accurately.

For a sketchy whitepaper, you can easily see the lack of professionalism of the project members. Please refer to another ICO project right away. After reading a Whitepaper you still cannot figure out the operational goals, the amount of capital to call, or the expected results,...

12.2.5 No address Contact

ICO investment often has errors, and you will need help from the project side. If there is no contact information, what should the investor do? Contact information is essential for all investors in all sectors. However, if you find that it is fake information, do not invest.

12.2.6 Commitment to investment returns

It is not easy for a project to find a significant and stable source of capital to commit profits to all investors regularly every month. Because business is not always favorable, the commitment to profit is just a form of helping projects hit the psychology of investors to attract them to contribute capital.

Therefore, for any project that promises monthly profits, you should consider it carefully before investing.

12.2.7 Words are drawn, and many Buzzwords.

The message of an ICO project is often expressed through the project's long-term vision. Besides, the target audience also helps you evaluate the project. If someone repeats the same message repeatedly, then you are the customer in this case.

Besides, many projects use many sublime terms. But it does not contain much important and confusing information, and you should stay away. If you are new to ICOs, listening to Buzzword makes you feel uncomfortable. Because you cannot understand what these sublime words are conveying.

12.2.8 No clear development roadmap

When looking at an ICO project, you need to pay attention to the project's development roadmap. Because this information helps visualize the development possibilities of the project.

If the project doesn't provide a development roadmap, you can never know the outcome of success or failure. Or in the case of a project that offers a development roadmap but makes unreasonable assumptions, it will be difficult for you to predict the future of the ICO.

12.2.9 No demo product

You should remember that no matter how detailed and thorough the Whitepaper is about its advantages, it doesn't show the Demo product. Everything you hear is the same. I can not believe it. Because a successful project is like the Whitepaper, many other problems arise.

12.3 Constantly learning and cultivating knowledge

Blockchain & Cryptocurrency is a rapidly growing and rapidly changing fields. What you learned yesterday may not be true today.

A willingness to receive knowledge is necessary for an intelligent ICO investor. You can join ICO groups to exchange investment experiences and build quality relationships with people with expertise in virtual currency investment.

12.4 Take responsibility for your decisions

Players need to take responsibility for every decision, whether right or wrong. If you go there, find out why you lose to learn from experience. When you invest in an ICO through someone's recommendation, remember to respect that person even if the outcome is not what you want.

Whether profit or loss, the money you bring to the forefront is your effort. Therefore, you need to be responsible for your property.

Related posts:

• What is Proof of Stake (POS)? Things you need to know
• What is KYC and AML? How to verify KYC successfully

Through the above article, you will understand what is ICO and how to invest in ICO. ICO is a very potential investment trend. However, if you want to invest in ICO effectively, you need to understand ICO knowledge. From there, can get the most significant profit and avoid the risks. Follow BHO Network to update more useful information related to virtual currency investment.