The world of cryptocurrencies has completely taken off in 2017. Bitcoin’s price has risen to over $7000, the highest price in its history. There has also been an increase in the number of initial coin offerings (ICOs).
Using data from Coinschedule we can get a clear idea of just how much of an increase in ICO activity there has been from 2016 to 2017. In all of 2016 there were forty-six (46) ICOs which raised a total of $96M. The year 2017 has seen over four (4) times the amount of ICOs. These have raised $3.2B, and there are still two (2) months left to go in the year. Waves was the top ICO of 2016 raising a total of $16M. However, it pales in comparison to the $257M raised by Filecoin in 2017. In fact, all of the Top Ten ICOs of 2017 raised over $45M.
With the price of bitcoin, ethereum and other cryptocurrencies continuing to rise, the ICO frenzy likely won’t slow down anytime soon. This is helped by the fact that there are just so many people hoping to become ICO investors and catch the next bitcoin when it's still early.
One of the main reasons for the increase in ICO activity has been the abundance of interesting projects which are turning to the blockchain to make their products a reality and using cryptocurrencies to raise necessary funds. Here are a few of the ones which peaked my interest.
1) LiveEdu
LiveEdu is building the next-generation online learning Lynda.com fully decentralized on the blockchain. LiveEdu is a live and video tutorial learning platform where content creators teach learners how to build real products from the fields of programming, game development, data science, design, VR & AR, AI and cryptocurrencies. Online education has become a very popular way for students to learn about various topics. However, there are still some issues within the space such as low completion rates for persons starting courses on platforms like Udemy and Pluralsight.
LiveEdu is seeking to disrupt this industry in two ways. Firstly, their goal is to develop a decentralized online learning ecosystem that is not reliant on learning theory but practical useful career skills. Essentially, rather than just learn the theory associated with certain topics and not know what to do afterwards, students can see experts build products in a live stream. Secondly, they plan to use EDU tokens to help incentivize the content creators to create the best content and viewers to watch the content. This is the only upcoming ICO on my list, their pre-sale begins on Nov. 6th and main crowdsale is set for Nov. 21st. The reason why this project is so interesting is that they already have an established product and team working together for over 2 years. Unlike other ICOs which have yet to develop a product, LiveEdu is simply bringing their product to the blockchain.
2) Bancor
The Bancor ICO raised $153M in June 2017. Bancor represents a potential reserve currency for all cryptocurrencies. Their goal is to help make trading between different cryptocurrencies simpler. The Bancor protocol enables built-in price discovery and a liquidity mechanism for tokens on smart contract blockchains. Bancor wants to do away with the current model of cryptocurrency exchanges. Currently you have to go to a cryptocurrency exchange every time you wish to change a token and find someone who is interested in buying it. The interest in the token or coin you are selling is dependent on trading volume. Bancor smart contracts facilitate continuous liquidity, meaning that you don’t need another person or an exchange to swap tokens, it is all embedded within the code of the smart contract.
3) Civic
The Civic ICO raised $33M, also in June 2017. Civic allows for on-demand, secure and low cost access to identity verification via the blockchain. Their goal is to cut down the time for background checks to happen. Civic will use trusted identity verification providers such as banks and utility companies to verify the attributes of individuals. Participants in the ecosystem get rewarded in one of two ways. Validators get tokens when their attestations are used to identify a person and users receive tokens by providing their identity information for validation. Civic is also boosted by having a pre-existing product. Their app has proven to be an exciting addition to the identity verification space. Like LiveEdu, they are simply using the capabilities of the blockchain to continue improving their product.
Conclusion
2017 will likely end up being the breakout year for ICOs. The blockchain has the potential to revolutionize just about every industry. Bancor and Civic have had successful ICOs and LiveEdu seem to have all the ingredients to have a good one also. Exciting ICO projects should keep the high investment in cryptocurrency alive for quite some time.