Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) usually attract a lot of attention. After all, even Ethereum started as one.
If you thought the golden years of ICO cryptocurrencies ended in 2018, you’d be sadly mistaken. Investors, brave or inexperienced enough to be willing to take the risk, still chase publicly offered cryptocurrencies like bloodhounds on a trail. This article will therefore summarize the most interesting ICOs of 2021 to give you some idea of the market situation.
What is an ICO?
Before we get to the list, let’s define the term a bit more clearly. “ICO” stands for “Initial Coin Offering” and is usually performed by small projects to raise funds. Investors purchase the “offered” crypto hoping the project will succeed in its endeavors. Ethereum, at the time of writing the second most popular cryptocurrency, has definitely made its investors happy.
PointPay $PXP — Hidden gem with a bundle of products
PointPay is a small cryptocurrency with big goals that was created in 2018. At the time of writing, it offers 10 products to its users, mainly targeting the financial sector, hopping on the DeFi bandwagon.
Its flagship is a platform for storing cryptocurrencies and earning daily interest on them. It supports the most popular ones, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum or Litecoin. If you’d prefer to deposit stablecoins such as USDT, USDC or DAI, you can as well.
You can send the cryptocurrencies to PointPay from your personal wallet or buy them right there using most payment methods, including Samsung or Apple Pay. PointPay will also send you a brand-new VISA debit card, to make your future purchases even easier. The robustness and accessibility of its products truly make PointPay one of the best ICOs of the last year.
Aurox Token $URUS — By traders for traders
The Aurox platform aims to simplify cryptocurrency trading. That’s a worthy goal, but not the reason we put it on our list. What truly makes Aurox one of the best ICOs of 2021 is its utility token URUS. It is truly decentralized, minimizing the risk of a rug-pull for the potential investors. It’s easy to verify there are no whales hoarding the majority of the token, waiting for it to go up just to sell. It being first offered on Uniswap also speaks volumes about accessibility and fairness.
The Aurox Terminal, chief selling point of the project, ingeniously combines trading and DeFi principles. It offers a wide range of tools, some well-known, some completely unique. To say its ultimate aim is ambitious would be a major understatement, since it directly competes with such giants of industry as TradingView or Bloomberg.
The URUS token will play a major role in two, yet-to-be-released products: Aurox Lend and Aurox Trade.
Aurox Lend
Offering one of the most popular features in the current DeFi landscape, Aurox Lend claims the users will get the best interest on their staked cryptocurrencies thanks to being algorithmically distributed throughout various services.
Aurox Trade
Aurox Trade is a liquidity aggregator enhancing the original Terminal. It offers trading on the majority of exchanges, all through one interface.
2local $L2L — Sustainability and prosperity for all?
2local seeks to create a blockchain marketplace to connect companies, farmers, and artisans with customers. This marketplace is to be built using the ultra-fast ERC-721 standard of the Ethereum network, but on a native blockchain.
To gather more “connected companies” under its wings, this young crypto-project employs so-called “representatives”. These search for local and sustainable companies, help them register with 2local and guide them along the way.
There are three pillars to the 2local ecosystem: sustainability, prosperity, and modern technology. Offering proprietary blockchain adhering to a popular international standard, L2L is cheap and accessible, exactly what the small businesses it aims to attract need.
Helping save local businesses is definitely an endeavor deserving a place in our list.
API3 $API3 — Build your own internet
In simple terms, an API is an interface allowing third parties to interact with a web-based app. Imagine a plugin letting you pull weather forecast data from a meteorological site, or number of views on a video on YouTube.
API3 offers simple and accessible interface empowering people to create their own decentralized apps (dApps) utilizing a number of APIs. All under the banner of safety and anonymity.
The project follows in the footsteps of early cryptocurrencies by offering tools rather than solutions and letting the community do the rest. All API3 code will be open source and the project follows the principles of a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) where each token holder has the right to vote on important issues.
API3 can seem a little risky, since complete decentralization on the executive level means your guess is as good as ours as to where the project might end up, however, let’s not forget that Ethereum started the same way. Maybe in a few years API3 will become the new web standard.
Blockster $BXR — Networking for network fans
Blockster is building a social network for cryptocurrency enthusiasts. What we get feels like LinkedIn spiced up with blockchain. The platform is advertised as something between a social network, a news site, and a cryptocurrency aggregator.
At the time of writing, Blockster claims to have over half a million monthly visitors and subscribers.
The BXR token’s utility lies in buying advertising space on the network. It can also be used for tipping interesting posts. We’ve picked Blockster for this list because of its ambitious, but clear and thought out plans, starkly contrasting many ICOs who seem to have little in the way of strategy beyond “get as much money as possible.”
What to buy to become a billionaire?
We don’t know. There are many hidden gems and it’s up to you to decide which ones are worth your money. ICOs offer a great opportunity to get in early and be there for the birth of a new legend, but there are no guarantees. Look for transparency, applicability, and fair attitude. After all, those are the principles we’ve built Probinex upon.
