Brace yourselves, ICOs are back!
It’s now been 3 months since I joined the core team of Futourist — a travel review platform that rewards their users for their content with crypto tokens. And it’s been one hell of a rollercoaster ride since then. ICOing were booming in the summer of ’17, but things soon turned around as the ICO hype slowly evaporated. Even though the Futourist project was not established opportunistically, just because ICOs presented the fastest lane towards a pile of cash, these up and down times made us want to do even better, work even harder, offer a project that cannot be said no to. It’s 2018 now and ICOs are back.
How ICOs went from the summer of ’17 to a downfall
Most of you probably know 2017 was a very good year for ICOs. Especially during the summer months, ICO scene was booming. There were basically no ICOs failing to get to the threshold, hard-caps of the crowdsales were insanely high. I mean.. What in the world CAN’T you do for $100 million? It all seemed like it’s too good to be true.
And it kind of was… Everything began to slow down in the fall, which felt real uncomfortable for upcoming ICOs, like the Futourist project I’m involved with. ICO’s weren’t raising much money, they lowered the hard caps and there were more and more of those who didn’t even get to the crowdsale threshold. To me it felt the entire crypto world was thinking “OK, ICO era ended, it was good while it lasted”.
All eyes on Bitcoin
Through late 2017 we kept believing that no matter the ICO landscape state, the offer the project proposes will bring investors. And December, as I’m sure you remember, was a Bitcoin bull-run. When that happens, altcoins get less attention. One would figure out that raising funds by creating an altcoin during a Bitcoin bull-run has to affect the outcome of the crowdsale.
Futourist sticks to the plan
I and the Futourist team remained calm through these uncertain times. We didn’t pay much attention to the possibility of failure, even though all indicators were saying “ICO era closing in front”. We kept focusing on delivering a project one could not say no to. The one that would get all the ticks:
- A down-to-earth idea solving a real-world problem
- A small, realistic hard-cap
- A token with a long list of utilities
- An economy incentivizing token demand
- An existing product that brings us much closer to our final goal
- And a competent team that performs well together and is supported by the knowhow of experienced advisors.
And as things started to come together, it seemed we did it. We managed to incorporate all that into Futourist’s whitepaper and went on to announce Futourist’s ICO.
Where to after Bitcoin? Alts and ICOs.
And as the Bitcoin bull-run ended, the altcoins were on the run next. There was a massive influx of new investors into the market, which is reflected by the recent rise in the altcoins market, which reached the $500 billion threshold. We can observe the growth in the altcoin market by the amount of ICOs that are getting huge media coverage.
As for Bitcoin… We saw the same pattern happening many times before — Bitcoin, then altcoins with a delay. December has traditionally been a Bitcoin month and January an altcoin month. No differences this year. And when altcoins are up it’s good times for ICOs. Which is very much logical, since ICOs are creating new altcoins. So, overall, the market seems to be growing, and after a very positive start, 2018 seems likely to be a very interesting year.
The next ICO wave is coming and one stands out
So now again, after all the fuss about ICO type of fundraising dying, it seems the ICO landscape is on the rise. Hard-caps are going up. Projects are raising 9-figure numbers again. ICO reviewers are all happy again. Maybe most surprisingly of all — huge brands like Telegram, Kodak and MUFJ are ICO-ing. And if startup history is of any relevance to the ICOs, the second wave of startups will be the one changing the world.
Futourist still has the same plan with just a couple of minor changes. We were prepared for raising funds in the worst of times. Now that the situation seems to be changing, we believe our proposal stands out even more. We announced our ICO last week and the community response was just amazing. Having almost no negative feedback in our channels gave us a nice boost of confidence. The direction set seems to be good, now we just need to work hard, raise the funds and most importantly of all — develop and market Futourist.
2018 will be an exciting year for ICOs and blockchain in general. I can’t wait to go through it!
Stay tuned,
- Gorazd
