The Key to Building Trust in an ICO is Transparency
While Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) are a great way for new businesses to help develop innovative solutions, they can of course be a risk. The crypto industry has certainly proven it can be a breeding ground for unrelenting success — not least of all through ICOs — the lack of regulation throughout the market can sometimes lead to fraud, insecurity and failure.
Indeed, while NEO may have leapt from a coin price of $0.03 to $88.20 (a 294,000% ROI) in becoming the most successful ICO of all time, it’s worth remembering that nearly 50% of 2017’s ICOs are currently failing, and this is a growing problem within the industry.
Why Do ICOs Fail?
At first glance, from an investor’s view, ICOs should be a first class ticket to success. A huge potential for growth — as has already been seen in the unparalleled rise of NEO — an ICO grants the chance to get in on the ground floor of a project that has limitless potential.
That, paired with the only validation for contributing to an ICO being a private key (which requires no accreditation beforehand), makes investing a much simpler, straight forward process. This can help to attract much more attention than traditional investing, leading to much higher liquidity than what Wall Street offers. It all comes together to make perfect sense: invest in ICOs.
Unfortunately, nothing is ever that simple, and ICOs are no different. The lack of regulation means that crypto is open to exploitation from fraudsters looking only to rob you of your hard earned cash; setting up an ICO, collecting the money, and suddenly disappearing from the face of the Earth a few months after completion.
This increasing fear leads to a huge portion of ICOs not raising the kinds of funding they require and deserve. What’s more, even legitimate projects can fail to make it as a result of not being able to offer the kind of faith that an investor would need to commit — be it through the product itself, or the way that it is sold.
There is, however, one key element which can help to increase the success of an ICO: trust.
Trust in Transparency
Building trust is a tough ask. How can you persuade a stranger to contribute their own finances into your project? You know why your product is better than anything else on the market, but others don’t. They don’t possess that information that gives you the ingrained faith that your offering can make a difference. .
Transparency from the company running an ICO is the only way that they can access this knowledge too — and align their perspective with yours. Of course, an ICO cannot disclose every single relative detail, but it can go a long way towards it.
There are various ways that an ICO can be transparent, and there are huge benefits towards it. Transparency proves legitimacy above all — the more detail, the more faith that what you are selling is real, or, at least, what will be. It also keeps contributors in the loop, feeling as an important part of the process, and recognised for their efforts; a hugely important factor in making investors feel valued.
It’s all well and good recognising the need to be transparent, but how can we put this into action?
Social media channels in 2018 are the bread and butter of almost everyone’s daily life. Today, Twitter picks up an incredible 335 million monthly users, and the social network is well and truly part of everyone’s day. Going social means that contributors can easily stay up to date on the latest movements from ICOs, blog posts, news and updates coming from a company — staying involved every step of the way and connecting with the business on a higher level.
Here at USAVE, we utilise Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn all together to keep followers and connections in the loop — consistently publishing blogs to make investors feel as involved as they can be whilst helping them to understand the goals of the brand.
Creating an extensive whitepaper may sound like a heavy job, and an even heavier read. But if the information is there, you can almost guarantee any contributor will be reading it. It’s where the real detail can be delved into, and is a company’s opportunity to iron out any nitty gritty qualms that might be stopping someone from committing. If you’re building a whitepaper anyway, why not go that extra yard?
Our lightpaper can be found here, and discusses in great depth everything that the company plans to implement once we exit our ICO stage; the document offers a detailed explanations as to what our solution aims to achieve right at its very basis, as well our strategic partners, the USAVE token, and the team putting all of this into effect.
Outlining a clearly defined strategy is what will be key to building trust. A company can have the strongest social media performances coupled with a 100 page whitepaper, but if the strategy isn’t right — or isn’t clear — then investors will flee all too easily.
We aim to create a sustainable ecosystem based on blockchain technology, looking to redefine the gold supply chain at every step of the process — from mining right through to refinery. For a more in-depth look at our strategy, visit our website for all the information you might need.
Our very own ICO pre-sale launches at the end of September, and we aim to raise a hard cap of $130 million. Be sure to keep an eye out on all of our channels for updates throughout the process as we look to take the trust of our investors, and turn it into a global trust in the gold industry.

