Tracking the history of cryptocurrencies (3): ICO prosperity and evolution of Ethereum

Source: Cointelegraph; Compilation: Tao Zhu, Bitchain Vision Realm

In this article, we will experience one of the most changeable periods in the history of encrypted experience, that is, the boom of the first token issuance (ICO).

In early 2017, ICO swept the cryptocurrency field, allowing thousands of new projects based on blockchain to quickly raise a lot of funds by selling pre -issued tokens directly to investors.The project issuance tokens in exchange for the start of the new network and decentralized application (DAPP) funds.

What is ICO?

ICO is a token sales that combines the first public offering (IPO) model commonly used in the traditional financial community with crowdfunding, and sells tokens to raise funds based on blockchain projects.

It is worth noting that although the ICO boom is considered a period when projects and investors have received huge returns, it is also full of withdrawal of scams and Rug Pulls, which has later attracted close attention from regulators and investors in relevant financial authorities.

The largest ICO in the prosperity period

Although the prosperity of ICO is full of various types of supervision and financial turmoil, it has laid the foundation for the launch of some large projects in the encryption field today, including Ethereum, EOS Network, Chainlink, Filecoin, Tezos, and Telegram (TON).

The largest ICO is performed by a private company called Block.one, which is the founder of the EOS network.EOS raised an amazing $ 4 billion in 2018.

The second largest ICO was conducted by Telegram and raised $ 1.7 billion.However, unlike many other ICOs provided by many other retail investors, Telegram’s ICO is largely limited, so it is limited to private investors with a large amount of capital.

Filecoin is the third largest ICO, and in 2017, it raised more than $ 257 million.

The role of Ethereum in the ICO boom

Ethereum itself raised funds through ICO, and raised a total of $ 18 million from July 22 to September 22.January 2, 2014.Ethereum ICO investors used Bitcoin (BTC) for Ethereum (ETH), and sold Ethereum with a value of more than $ 2.2 million within 24 hours after the ICO.

From 2017 to 2018, the vast majority of ICOs are carried out on the Ethereum network. Smart contracts allow developers to start new tokens and start agreements more easily than any other available blockchain network.

Ethereum network allows developers to create new ERC-20s coins and automatically distribute them to investors after reaching the financing threshold.These projects are then managed by DAO.

The functions provided by Ethereum make the price of online native token Ethereum rising rapidly, soaring from about $ 10 in January 2017 to the peak of nearly $ 1,400 in January of the following year.

Similarly, during the ICO boom,The use of Ethereum has increased, ERC-20 tokens have become industry standards, and laid the foundation for Ethereum’s continued prominent position in today’s encrypted ecosystems.

ICO’s prosperity and legal dilemma

Although many projects have raised funds from ICOs for the use of newly raised funds for legitimate reasons, there are still thousands of projects that are either planned, or thorough fraud.Development plan.

It is the increasing number of these illegal projects that have been exposed, which has attracted the attention of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Regulatory agencies began to pay attention to issues related to ICO in 2017. Previously, the regulatory agency investigated an ICO of the “The DAO” organization in 2016, and concluded that the relevant sales were illegal and constituted the issuance of unregistered securities issuance.Essence

In this precedent, SEC took legal operations on Block.one, the parent company of the EOS network to order them to pay a fine of $ 24 million.Similarly, the agency also ordered Telegram to pay a fine of $ 18.5 million and return an amazing $ 1.2 billion to its ICO investors.

Because the native TON token is regarded as securities, Telegram was forced to abandon the project.As the code library of the project is open source, the TON network was later rescued by the developer community.

Track the history of cryptocurrencies!

Despite the supervision review, ICO has played a key role in the fundraising process of some of the most important blockchain projects today.

It is worth noting that the prosperity of ICO is the dominant position of Ethereum in today’s encrypted ecosystem. The ERC-20s tokens are established as industry standards and significantly increased the use of developers to Ethereum.

In the next article, we will study the encryption winter in 2018 and discuss the most important elements in Ethereum evolution.