Initial Coin Offering (ICO)

Rather than looking to traditional angel or venture investors to place capital as an equity investment, companies developing new blockchain-based products and services have turned to the cryptocurrency community to crowdsource the purchase and usage of their token in an ICO. This new fundraising tool is similar in some ways to a crowdfunding campaign, but instead of offering a copy of a product or shares of equity in a startup, what is being offered are digital tokens. This process of selling new cryptocurrency tokens in an ICO results in funding received via cryptocurrency, most commonly in Bitcoin or Ether. As an alternative, fiat money (e.g. USD, EUR, CHF) is betimes considered.