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ICO (Initial Coin Offering) just refers to the specific phase where the company sells tokens for a limited amount of time in order to get the tokens into the ha

ICO (Initial Coin Offering) just refers to the specific phase where the company sells tokens for a limited amount of time in order to get the tokens into the hands of users. For most, simultaneously or later, the company creates a smart-contract system that the tokens are to be used in. (The tokens may act as a limited currency to get the smart-contract system to do something for you, the tokens may have voting rights over how the smart-contract system can be upgraded, etc.) An ICO being complete just means that the token generation/selling by the company is over. Users are free to buy and sell the tokens between themselves at this point, and use them in the smart-contract system whenever it's live. Any prices listed on that page are intended to be recent; a price there means that people are trading that token now for that amount.

Waterluvian 9y ago
Hm, interesting. Thanks for sharing. I was confused by the concept of an ICO because looking at Bitcoin, it's been dolling out new coins on a regular basis via. mining (slowing over time), and people weren't buying them. Does this mean that some "coins" have 100% of their inventory known at the beginning and instead of people guessing correct hashes, they have to simply buy them from a central authority?
- AgentME 9y ago
  Yeah pretty much. It might be helpful to make a distinction between cryptocurrencies (some popular ones being Bitcoin and Ethereum) and tokens (Augur being one) which operate predominantly through Ethereum smart contracts. (Disclaimer: I own some of each of these, but I mention these ones specifically because I think they bring some innovation and are better examples than most of the ideal purpose and decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies/tokens. There's a lot of contenders in this space which are unsound and really only exist as an item to speculate on.) Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin need some way of verifying the valid transaction history and generally solve this through proof-of-work mining. In order to incentivize people to mine and to solve the problem of distributing amounts to users, the system is built so mining generates currency for the miners. Generally there is no privileged party in the system with the special power to mint arbitrary amounts as they wish. (Some like Ethereum did do an ICO-style sale at the beginning to raise money and to jumpstart getting Ether into people's hands. Generally I've thought this type of thing has been pretty scammy as a lot of innovation-less pump-and-dump altcoins have done this kind of thing and it's not exactly decentralized, but Ethereum has actually delivered on some technical innovation so I'm a bit conflicted.) Tokens are systems implemented on pre-existing cryptocurriencies for tracking arbitrary limited units that can be exchanged and traded like a cryptocurrency. They rely on the infrastructure of the cryptocurrency they're implemented upon. So a token implemented on Ethereum smart contracts doesn't need to be mined; it's just important that Ethereum continues to be mined, and also transactions involving the token generally require small amounts of Ethereum to pay for transaction fees. The idea of most popular tokens is that they can or will be used to interact with a decentralized system made of Ethereum smart contracts. For example, there are various popular tokens intended to be used as the currency for decentralized prediction markets (a fancier type of betting site basically that lets you do things buy/sell out of your positions). Tokens don't need specific mining in order to verify their transaction history, so for getting tokens into user's hands, the old solution (mining rewards) doesn't work. So I guess that gave an excuse for lots of token developers into doing ICOs / initial limited sales. At least a lot of these tokens nowadays have more of a plan that involves becoming a decentralized system and bringing innovation than run-of-the-mill pump-and-dump altcoins in the past. Though it's to be seen how many end up being vaporware and how many actually take off.

Waterluvian 9y ago

Hm, interesting. Thanks for sharing. I was confused by the concept of an ICO because looking at Bitcoin, it's been dolling out new coins on a regular basis via. mining (slowing over time), and people weren't buying them. Does this mean that some "coins" have 100% of their inventory known at the beginning and instead of people guessing correct hashes, they have to simply buy them from a central authority?

AgentME 9y ago
Yeah pretty much. It might be helpful to make a distinction between cryptocurrencies (some popular ones being Bitcoin and Ethereum) and tokens (Augur being one) which operate predominantly through Ethereum smart contracts. (Disclaimer: I own some of each of these, but I mention these ones specifically because I think they bring some innovation and are better examples than most of the ideal purpose and decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies/tokens. There's a lot of contenders in this space which are unsound and really only exist as an item to speculate on.) Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin need some way of verifying the valid transaction history and generally solve this through proof-of-work mining. In order to incentivize people to mine and to solve the problem of distributing amounts to users, the system is built so mining generates currency for the miners. Generally there is no privileged party in the system with the special power to mint arbitrary amounts as they wish. (Some like Ethereum did do an ICO-style sale at the beginning to raise money and to jumpstart getting Ether into people's hands. Generally I've thought this type of thing has been pretty scammy as a lot of innovation-less pump-and-dump altcoins have done this kind of thing and it's not exactly decentralized, but Ethereum has actually delivered on some technical innovation so I'm a bit conflicted.) Tokens are systems implemented on pre-existing cryptocurriencies for tracking arbitrary limited units that can be exchanged and traded like a cryptocurrency. They rely on the infrastructure of the cryptocurrency they're implemented upon. So a token implemented on Ethereum smart contracts doesn't need to be mined; it's just important that Ethereum continues to be mined, and also transactions involving the token generally require small amounts of Ethereum to pay for transaction fees. The idea of most popular tokens is that they can or will be used to interact with a decentralized system made of Ethereum smart contracts. For example, there are various popular tokens intended to be used as the currency for decentralized prediction markets (a fancier type of betting site basically that lets you do things buy/sell out of your positions). Tokens don't need specific mining in order to verify their transaction history, so for getting tokens into user's hands, the old solution (mining rewards) doesn't work. So I guess that gave an excuse for lots of token developers into doing ICOs / initial limited sales. At least a lot of these tokens nowadays have more of a plan that involves becoming a decentralized system and bringing innovation than run-of-the-mill pump-and-dump altcoins in the past. Though it's to be seen how many end up being vaporware and how many actually take off.