Book Image

Blockchain Developer's Guide

By : Brenn Hill, Samanyu Chopra, Paul Valencourt, Narayan Prusty
Book Image

Blockchain Developer's Guide

By: Brenn Hill, Samanyu Chopra, Paul Valencourt, Narayan Prusty

Overview of this book

Blockchain applications provide a single-shared ledger to eliminate trust issues involving multiple stakeholders. It is the main technical innovation of Bitcoin, where it serves as the public ledger for Bitcoin transactions. Blockchain Developer's Guide takes you through the electrifying world of blockchain technology. It begins with the basic design of a blockchain and elaborates concepts, such as Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), tokens, smart contracts, and other related terminologies. You will then explore the components of Ethereum, such as Ether tokens, transactions, and smart contracts that you need to build simple DApps. Blockchain Developer's Guide also explains why you must specifically use Solidity for Ethereum-based projects and lets you explore different blockchains with easy-to-follow examples. You will learn a wide range of concepts - beginning with cryptography in cryptocurrencies and including ether security, mining, and smart contracts. You will learn how to use web sockets and various API services for Ethereum. By the end of this Learning Path, you will be able to build efficient decentralized applications. This Learning Path includes content from the following Packt products: • Blockchain Quick Reference by Brenn Hill, Samanyu Chopra, Paul Valencourt • Building Blockchain Projects by Narayan Prusty
Table of Contents (37 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright
About Packt
Contributors
Preface
Index

Chapter 18. ICO 101

ICO stands for Initial Coin Offering, also called a token sale or initial token offering. An ICO is an event where a new blockchain project raises money by offering network tokens to potential buyers. Unlike IPOs, no equity is for sale. Buyers receive tokens on the network but do not own the underlying project intellectual property, legal ownership, or other traditional equity traits unless specifically promised as part of the sale. The expectation of profit (if there is one) comes from holding the token itself. If demand for use of the new network increases, then presumably so will the value of owning the token.

In this chapter, we are going to cover ICOs, how they came about, and the critical aspects that happen as part of executing one. ICOs continue to evolve, but many events and deliverables have become expected and even mandatory for success.

The first ICO was developed in 2013 by Mastercoin. Mastercoin held that their token, such as bitcoin, would increase in value...