7 Best Blockchain Platforms for running ICOs
The birth of the cryptocurrency market introduced the world to three things. The blockchain technology, the cryptocurrency market and ICOs. The cryptocurrency market took three problem areas of the financial market and solved them with the birth of bitcoin.
The middleman was removed from financial transactions with the peer-to-peer system, record tampering became a no-no because of the blockchain and probably the most important of all and the butt of many regulations, the usual funding route was changed to the ICO route, putting VC’s out of their jobs.
The ICO option lets startups crowdfund their product and also keeps them true to it because the development of the project is now a community activity. For the task of running an ICO, many platforms exist that connect the project with the community around it.
Here is a list of the seven best platforms to run ICOs –
Ethereum
The cryptocurrency market is mainly dominated by these three big names; bitcoin, ethereum and ripple. While Bitcoin was the first and remains the largest cryptocurrency in the market, the second spot is in a constant contest between Ethereum and Ripple, with Ethereum staying put for the most part.
The Ethereum platform is also one of the most popular platforms for startups to run their ICOs. According to research, close to 70% of the projects out there have tokens that adhere to the ERC20 token standard.
One of the main reasons for this mass adoption of the Ethereum token standard is because these tokens are compatible with all online wallets.
The Ethereum Platform also has the smart contract feature that lends its legitimacy to all the startups that are willing to use the platform.
Ethereum’s token compatibility and smart contract mechanism sets the platform apart from the rest and is the reigning monarch of the ICO platforms.
Waves
Waves is, along with a decentralised exchange, is an ICO platform. The decentralised exchange offers its own wallet services and adds tokens that are ICO’ed on their platform to their wallet too.
The platform is about two years old and since its launch in 2016, has been topping the list for easy usability and fastest growing platforms in terms of the number of tokens added.
Using either their online or offline client, all businesses can create their own digital currencies and issue a token sale. And the added advantage of running an ICO on the Waves platform is the community aspect. Not only do companies and projects raise money but they also gain a loyal customer base and constant feedback and support.
The Waves platform, apart from being known for the ease of usability, it is also one of the fastest blockchain platforms out there. According to the results of a recent stress test, the platform can accommodate 190 transactions per second.
BlockStarter
BlockStarter is a dedicated ICO platform. Users can either run, contribute to or invest in ICOs on the platform and is known for its easy operability.
The platform recently released a fresh new look for the platform which included features that allowed users to create, design and save an ICO draft that can go live/public at a later date.
It allows sharing of the ICO template between teams and authorised users for feedback and approval. Companies and project teams on the platform can create their own ERC20 standard token for their ICO and distribution is catered for on the platform. There is an interactive dashboard for the issuer of the ICO that helps individuals of the team to keep a track of the token sale.
BlockStarter is the answer to a not-so-tech-savvy person’s requirement to raise money through the ICO route.
NXT
NXT is a decentralised blockchain platform that is used for running ICOs among other things. The aim of the team at NXT is to apply the blockchain technology to many other industries apart from the financial one.
The interesting features that the NXT platform brings to the table are decentralised governance services and a customisable use for the blockchain. Anyone on their platform can use and create a blockchain tailor-fitted to their needs, use cases and descriptions.
NXT is one of the few from a handful of platforms that allows people to register funds in multiple cryptocurrencies.
BitShares 2.0
The BitShares Platform is one of the most popular ICO platforms because of its supersonic transaction speeds and low costs.
Apart from being an ICO platform, the platform is also a decentralised asset exchange.
CoinList
It is no secret that financial institutions and authorities all over the world are anti-ICOs because they are unregulated and make it very easy for market newbies to fall prey to their scams.
CoinList is one such ICO platform, that is clearly defining the ICO process and staying within the US SEC’s guidelines.
CoinList’s method of running ICOs is bringing down the scam level in the market and making it a friendlier environment to be in.
KICKICO
KICKICO is a blockchain platform that is built using the Ethereum smart contract feature. The platform is very comprehensive and concise in the way that it offers a one-stop single solution for an entire range of funding problems.
The company is constantly building on top and adding new features to tend to the changing market trends and in the general want to keep up to date.
