Initial Coin Offerings (ICO’s), the cryptocurrency version of an IPO, are increasingly becoming a popular way for new cryptocurrency projects to raise funds. With cryptocurrencies disrupting something as entrenched and fundamental as currency use, the interest is even more fevered. Add to that, the current proliferation of new cryptocurrencies for every conceivable market segment, and you have some exciting and groundbreaking ICO’s to come to market.
Following the lead of Ethereum, which sought to address specific shortcomings of current currencies and legal transactions, new cryptocurrency projects are sprouting up which are also looking to provide innovative solutions to transaction problems. Below are a few of the more interesting and exciting ICO’s that were brought to market.
Golem
Golem was one of the more successful ICO’s of 2016, raising $8.6 million in its first few hours. Golems website explains that it is a “global, open sourced, decentralized supercomputer that anyone can access” creating a shared decentralized P2P network, which it dubs “the worldwide supercomputer”. Using the GNT tokens and the blockchain, this technology looks to change how the internet and computing is shared in the future.
Chronobank.io
Chronobank is another blockchain project that raised over £2 million by the end of 2016. It is a platform for the recruitment industry, offering the ability to purchase or sell labor and services. It describes itself as the Uber of HR, recruitment and the finance industry. The focus is on short term recruitment in key industries (cleaning, building, warehousing, industrial labor, and e-commerce), it is a well-funded and ambitious move to decentralize the recruitment process and change the way that people find work, rewarding people with Labor-Hour coins.
Augur
If you have ever wanted to bet on anything and everything, then Augur is for you. Augur is a prediction market that gives you the chance to bet on anything, with a list as diverse as “everything from elections to the destruction of our solar system”. Wagering gives you the chance reputation tokens (REP), the platform’s currency. Augur raised $5.2M at its ICO launch and now trades for around $27 dollars.
Tezos
Tezos raised a whopping $232 million at its ICO launch earlier this year, mostly in Bitcoin and Ethereum. Tezos is a project designed to deal with governance and regulation of the blockchain. Described as a “self-amending” blockchain, it allows users to create changes within a blockchain structure. Practically, in the words of co-founder and CTO Arthur Breitman, the purpose was to create a “rule of law that is, OK, if we have to have these changes because the network needs to evolve, but at least we need to have a clear, decentralized procedure for making those changes”. Ultimately, this technology will give the blockchain a decentralized method to evolve, to adapt to different situations and needs. It is not difficult to understand the future need for this sort of technology, given the expected evolution of the blockchain from new cryptocurrencies as well as other blockchain projects.
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