We're going to review the Initial Coin Offering of Acorn Collective, a decentralized crowd funding platform to challenge the dominance of the likes of Kickstarter.
An Initial Coin Offering (ICO) is a campaign by the developers to raise funds for their blockchain technology. Developers of a blockchain will use the raised funds for the development, marketing, and future milestones of their project.
This article answers the question “What to look for in an ICO?”. Before investing your hard-earned money to any available ICO, better check the items if a blockchain project is feasible to have mass adoption in the future and its legitimacy.
Just a note: This is not a rating guide where 0 is the lowest and 11 is the highest. This article just serves as a guide for the things you should be looking for in an ICO and you should still DYOR.
- Whitepaper The whitepaper explains everything in detail about the blockchain project. Some are very technical, some are explained in layman’s terms. Some are full of graphics, some are text-based. Some are very much explained in detail, some are direct to the point.
- Roadmap The roadmap pertains to their long term goals in planning, development, and executions of their project. This includes the planning before the ICO. Some give up to 5 years in the future while some only give one or two years of development and execution mapping. This is one of the most crucial things to check for an ICO because you can see if the developers are within the time period of launching their promised milestones such as listing to an external exchange, developing another application, and so on.
- Community and Social Media An exquisite project has a very active community to support each other. The community is composed of the developers, investors, end-users, and supporters. They should have at least the three primary social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Telegram.
- News from the Media or Blog Updates Cryptocurrencies are not anymore just for the technical ones because Bitcoin had mainstream attention last year. Since past technologies need to be further improved in the future, mainstream and online media tend to be updated with current technological trends. A very good project should be active updating the community with events, partnerships, and other thingamajigs about them.
- Bitcointalk Announcement The Bitcointalk forum website is regarded as the most crypto-oriented forum in the world for Bitcoin and altcoins. It is expected that the earliest adopters of crypto are there. So it’s safe to say that if you want to launch a specific blockchain technology or application, it should be first announced to the Bitcointalk community.
- Specific Use Just like companies focusing on their specific industry in banking, healthcare, and electricity, crypto projects should have a specific use. The most common crypto uses in general are currency, platforms, payments, and utilities. Bitcoin is the most famous cryptocurrency. Ethereum is the most used platform because of its smart contracts. Ripple is the most common used for payments. Monero and Verge are good examples of a privacy coin. Sia is the most famous crypto-based cloud storage solution. Without a specific use, it would just be a sh*t coin.
- Usable Product or Application Most ICOs I’ve seen never had any working applications before their ICO. Whether it’s a working product, a website, or even just a prototype, an ICO should have at least a sample of their application or product. Most ICOs were merely plans and papers where they would just start developing their application or product after raising funds. ICOs should already have at least a sample of their project to be developed in full force once their crowd funding is finished.
- Token Distribution In their whitepaper or their website, it should be clearly stipulated how they are going to distribute their tokens. Meaning, they should be very transparent to indicate how many tokens would be available for the public crowd sale, how many tokens for the marketing efforts, and how many tokens would be given to the development team.
- Maximum Supply The main reason Bitcoin had unbelievable price increase in 2017 because it only has a finite supply and its current distribution of around 17 million is nearing its max supply. Just compare it to the analogies of cars. A Ferrari and a Lambo will always be more expensive than a Toyota and a Mazda. You should also read about a coin burn for unsold tokens in their whitepaper. Since a crypto should have a max supply, they won’t be distributing new tokens after the ICO so there would surely be an increase in price in the future.
- Publicized Team The team is behind it all. From the planning stage, to development, execution, and of course for future milestones, the team behind the blockchain project should always be checked. You should verify their names and affiliations especially in LinkedIn if their reputation has been kept in pristine condition or if they had been part of some malicious activities in the past. ICOs should publicize the team behind the project so they can be held accountable for problems that may arise in the future.
- Partnerships Since blockchain technology is just in its infancy, many businesses built on traditional platforms may be wary of adopting or partnering with companies built on top of blockchain. If prior the ICO they already have a working application or product, add that to the years of expertise and connections of the team behind the project, they should have at least some partners with their project.
In Acorn: They have a detailed whitepaper in their website and it can be viewed here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1PbmmXatTeAODdsWUl4bmRJOW8
In Acorn: They have a roadmap in their whitepaper.
In Acorn: They can be reached through the top social media platforms. Also, their admins are very active in Telegram.
In Acorn: They’re already featured by famous online sites such as Investing.com and Forbes.
In Acorn: They have an announcement in Bitcointalk website with following link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2470481.0
In Acorn: Acorn plans to be a decentralized crowdfunding platform where there will be minimal to zero fees for the transactions, all legal and non-harmful projects will be allowed, projects can start from any country in the world, early adopters will be rewarded, and they have a growing list of interested projects waiting to be listed.
In Acorn: As per their Telegram group, they still don’t have a sample application yet. They’re pushing for the Minimum Viable Product or MVP to be ready by the third quarter of 2018. Although they don’t have any sample application yet, at the top of their website you can see some listed projects waiting to be crowdfunded.
In Acorn: Their token distribution is detailed in their whitepaper.
In Acorn: Acorn has a maximum supply of 90 million Oak tokens.
In Acorn: Their team is posted on their website and whitepaper.
In Acorn: They have some several partners listed on their website already.
Summary:
In summary, here are the items to check: whitepaper, roadmap, community and social media channels, news or blog updates, Bitcointalk announcement, specific use, usable product or application, token distribution details, maximum supply, publicized team, and partnerships. Out of 11, Acorn has ten of them, lacking only one.
Just a disclaimer for everyone: This is not an investment advice. Invest at your own risk. Invest only the amount you can afford to lose because the world of crypto is a very speculative one. No one can predict the price of any crypto.
Website: https://aco.ai/
Whitepaper: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1PbmmXatTeAODdsWUl4bmRJOW8
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheAcornCollectiveICO
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AcoCollective
Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/HI_eCBG0fCRCl1ja-d5JDg
Medium: https://medium.com/@Acorn.Collective
Author: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1767289