Introduction

Hello Steemians,

Welcome to another week in the Steemit crypto academy. I attended the lecture by the crypto professor @imagen as the professor based his teachings on Initial Coin Offering (ICO). This blog is my homework task after the completion of the lesson. I will be discussing on the following sub heading listed below.

Homework:-
You should do your own research and answer the following points.

Explain in your own words what an ICO is.

  The term ICO simply means Initial Coin Offering or Initial public coin offering. ICO is a technique use for fund raising via crypto currency. It is important to mention here that Initial coin offering (ICO) invention was possible after the development of a new token with the sole purpose of raising funds that will finance the project at hand so as to be able to carry out proper finances of the project till it's end on the blockchain ecosystem.

When ever ICO is to be implemented, companies easily raise funds in the form of crypto currency for either the continuation of the ongoing project or for the start of a new project. At the process of ICO, some portion of the newly introduced cryptocurrency will be sold to potential members for the purpose of getting money or any other thing that is acceptable to represent the exchange like other crypto currency.

They following are few factors that one should consider before he/she opt for ICO projects.

• Performance:- Here we try to consider whether or not the token in question is performing according to the aim which is initial documented on it's whitepaper.
• Whitepaper:- The white paper of any project serves as a road map that reveals the project aim, goals, social reach etc.
• Team:- Here you consider whether or not the team have a reputable identity, that is they are not scammers and they are legit. Check also if the members of the team has in one way or the other join themselves in any successful project before.

Mention the differences between ICO (initial Coin Offering) and IEO (Initial Exchange Offering)

There are a whole lot of difference between ICO and IEO. For the purpose of these lesson I will be listing the few I know. Before I proceed, I have initial discussed with us above what ICO is all about, now let's quickly rush through what IEO is all about too.

Initial Exchange Offering is the operation of token offering and this is carried out by exchanges in view of trying to stabilised their reserve for the token in question before it finally enters the market. At these point, users are eligible to buy the token in question at the initial exchange offering (IEO) just as they buy other cryptos currency.

Source

Below are few difference between ICO and IEO

S/No.	ICO	IEO
1.	Token is offered by coin issuer	Token is offered by exchange as it stands as middle man between investors and coin issuer
2.	In presale no verification is required	Here account verification is required
3.	The ecosystem here is decentralized in nature	The ecosystems here is centralized in nature

What are the advantages and disadvantages of ICOs?

The advantages of ICO are numerous and below are few of them

• No verification is required when it comes to presale
• The team always generate income for the project in question or few new project whenever ICO is carried out.
• During ICO tokens are bought in a very low price
• Investors of crypto currency gets early access of such a coin.

As we all know, what ever has an advantage also has a disadvantage. Below are few disadvantages of ICO

• The absent of verification in ICO opens it up to hackers.
• Most ICO project as scam and a way to get money from other persons.
• No set down rules are followed by ICO and hence investors are mostly at risk.

List at least 1 ICO that is starting, is in development, or has ended. Explain the project of the development team and add information of interest. (Example: IOTA, Spectercoin, Ark)

  Spectrecoin was founded by Mandica but was later handed over to jbg due to his health challenges. It is important to mention here that Spectrecoin is developed based on shadowcash whitepaper, these is because Spectrecoin has no official whitepaper. At that time, Shadowcash was also faced with some challenges and where termed fraud, so also spectrecoin. Spectrecoin is a cryptocurrency aimed at privacy like physical cash. The asset features a proof-of-stake algorithm. The started an ICO between November 2016 to January 2017 which they got about $16,000.

Feature of Spectrecoin

• Fast and secure
• 5% yearly reward.
• Native Tor integration etc.

Conclusion

From my little research, I have discovered that ICO is a very good investment because a very huge profit can be made from it. Example of ICO that has been very successful and profit made is illustrated in a table below

S/No.	Token	Year	Amount raised
1.	Filecoin	10/08/2007	$250 Million
2.	Tezos	07/2017	$232 Million
3.	EOS	07/2017	$185 Million
4.	Bancor	06/2017	$153 Million
5.	Status	06/2017	$100 Million
6.	Ethereum		$18 Million

These are list of Token that has carried out ICO and are doing perfectly well till these day. Despite the success, investors must be careful and should not just jumb into any ICO without proper research on the legitness of the ICO.
Thanks to the crypto professor @imagen for this great lecture and I hope to learn more from you subsequently.

Thanks for reading...