Some few things you might need to know about ICOs (Initial Coin Offering)

ICO stands for Initial Coin Offering, and is a way of financing a project openly with Cryptocurrencies. Start-ups use them to finance their businesses, but ICO depends on the fact that the start-up has to grow. An ICO is a way to offer tokens of a digital currency, and it is easy to do so.

What is an ICO?

What we call ICO (initial offer of currency) is an unregulated public financing method. Its popularity has recently grown to become a major funding source for start-ups. Since the first ICOS completed, celebrated by Omni Layer (formally Mastercoin) in 2013 and Ethereum in 2014, many more have emerged.

How does an ICO work?

Start-ups raise money by creating and selling their own digital currency, called a token. Creating your own digital currency and starting an ICO is not as complicated as it seems. The ICOs are usually carried out on the Ethereum platform. Interestingly, Ethereum itself is the result of the 4th ICO project ever launched and it has been extremely successful that nowadays most of the ICOs are built up on this platform. The software behind Ethereum and Bitcoin is open source, which means that the source code is available to anyone who wants to modify it and create their own digital currency using Smart Contracts. However, the difficult part is usually to convince investors to buy your tokens or currency with promises of future value, before they have any value.

Why are you investing in these types of currencies?

ICO fundraisers promise those who purchase their tokens access to an application service or platform. The tokens they sell are used as ticket to the platform. In practically all cases a specific product or service is not offered, only a promise. In addition, people invest in currencies because they expect the value to grow once the services promised by the developers are completed, thus creating demand on the tokens.

What is the relationship between an IPO and an ICO?

Although they are inspired by the IPO (Initial Public Offering), in practice the ICOs are different. ICOs do not offer investors the ownership of the shares, and most of the projects behind the ICOs, if not all, do not have a real functional product or service. However, ICOs are a cheaper alternative to IPOs because they do not depend on the stock market and its rigorous corresponding documentation.

Are ICOs legal, or are they a scam?

Frankly speaking, it is inevitable that there are gaps in the law, since it takes time to adapt to technological advances. Some countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, are stepping up legislation on ICOs in a similar way to how stocks and bonds are regulated. Meanwhile, however, fundraisers and ICO investors are having a great time. ICOs can be used for a whole range of activities, from fundraising in start-ups and corporate finance, to outright fraud. For the average investor it can be difficult to carry out the necessary research on ICO projects. Distinguish between potential opportunities and scams.

What do financial companies say about ICOs?

Like it or not, institutional investors are finding it increasingly difficult to ignore digital currencies. Most financial companies are beginning to investigate ways to take advantage of blockchain technology. For example, Goldman Sachs is reportedly consulting with cryptocurrency experts to start a Bitcoin trading company. Tiffany Galvin, representative of the company, said: “In response to the interest of our customers in digital currencies, we are studying how to serve them in this space.” Another notable actor to opt for blockchain technology is the Bank of England (BoE). Recent news reveal that the BoE plans to revise its payment system so that Fintech companies can connect using blockchain technology.

Should you invest in an ICO?

Think about it before investing in an ICO. It is often not so easy to determine the viability of projects from a technological and business perspective. Many ICOs issuers promise irrational profitability, although many investors have laughed at skeptics on the way to the bank when the value of some currencies skyrocketed. However, according to experts, the cryptocurrency market is characterized by great volatility. This is the reason why some are requesting that regulators control and sanction irresponsible ICOs. Since not much can be done yet, investors will most likely lose money when things end up looking bad. The wisest thing is, as always, never to risk more money than you can afford to lose.

The trend is towards ICOs of established companies

Investments in ICOs are considered extremely risky. For this reason, experts advise to be cautious and make a maximum amount of research before investing in any project. The number of scams, the lack of regulation and the ups and downs of bitcoin and other digital currencies have left significant scratches on the reputation of ICOs. Investors need certainty and calculability that only established companies with real customers and profit can make possible. A project “in progress” is therefore more of a risky investment leaving investors in the blur concerning the realization or not of the project. As the example of n’cloud.swiss shows, the trends goes towards ICOs of established companies with the opportunity of acquiring digital assets and benefitting from the company’s success and hence profit sharing. Other examples prove that n’cloud.swiss indicates a direction that even larger companies in the world are following. New Zealand based internet provider HD group has been profitably running for a decade and now selling 10% of its company shares in an ICO. Cloud-based instant messaging service Telegram as another example was established thanks to an ICO and is now launching an ICO again. As a successfully running business, their new ICO is expected to be even more successful than the first one. The advantage that presents n’cloud.swiss is that is capable of unifying the advantages of a utility token and those of a security token in later stages of their ICO. As the first and only company in the world, the company is offering to investors the unique service of managing their tokens. The idea behind is to open up the doors to unexperienced ICO investors and allow them to benefit from the company’s success as well.

Whatever your plan as a crypto investor might be, n’cloud.swiss ICO offers a real exit strategy for everyone

To outshine other ICOs and be appealing to investors, n’cloud.swiss decided to to respond in the best possible manner to investors’ expectations given the fact that each of them has a specific goal when investing in an ICO. Generally, an investor considers short-term, mid-term and long-term opportunities before engaging into any kind of investment projects. n’cloud.swiss offers all three possible exit strategies in the following manner:

Short-term: Go for the option of selling NCU tokens on a exchange or buy any of our services or products as more than 4’000 users are already doing today!

Mid-term: Wait for the launch of the NCS security token, exchange your NCU tokens into NCS tokens and wait until the NCS token is ready for sale on selected exchanges.

Long-term: Change your NCU tokens into NCS tokens and benefit from profit-sharing, discounts and other great benefits.

Since the launch of n’cloud as one of Europe’s first IaaS/SaaS cloud platforms, several thousand users are working every day on this pioneering cloud platform, some even since 2009. The development of n’cloud.swiss as a full-service cloud platform for all cloud models (Public, Private, Hybrid, Community) is the logical continuation of a long-term cloud strategy of a healthy, independent and fully self-financed company. The collected funds through the ICO will help the company to expand across the globe and establish as a serious “Swiss made” cloud alternative to leading cloud providers such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud Platform.