**ICO's**

So what is an inital coin offering.  It's basically the same as an IPO (initial public offering) but you buy coins instead of stocks, so exactly the same thing.  It is a way for developers to get some cash so they can work on their projects, simple right?  Pretty much.

Basically you go to the coins website and they give you instructions on how to buy into the ICO either by sending BTC or ETH.  ETH is usually a little more confusing as you need gas and data feilds to fill in but most sites will have step by step instructions.

So how do you make money?  Well you will eventually get your coins.  You need to make sure you read the terms so you know when and how many coins you are getting.  Sometimes you will get some really bad setups making you wait.  (EOS).  You often will get the coin in your wallet immediately but you can't trade it until it goes on an exchange.  So that is another important thing you must consider is are they opening on an exchange you use.  

So how do you make money?  Almost all ICO's I have seen go like this.  
Coin listed on exchange.  
Worth more than you paid for it so half of the people dump the coin looking to make a  quick  buck.  
So that is the first way.  Just dump it.

When it hits a low half of those that dumped will buy again and the price will slowly creep up and there will be a few more dumps and creeps.  You can make money here too if you watch the trends.   Some coins might trend up up up as soon as they hit and not have a lot of dumping.  If you have a lot of faith in the coin just hold it and you can makes some really good coin.

Many ICO's are scams only hold if you are really sure it's legit and you want to ride it out.  My advice would be to only invest in ICO's you belive in but others like to ride the initial list price and dump of every ICO.

So if you are serious about Holding and making some possible serious coin here is what you look for.

So first follow the basic rules you follow when investing in an altcoin.

1.  Community -  Does it have a strong community backing the coin that want it to succeed.
2. Value -  does it provide value and can it produce a product people will pay money/btc for
3.  Platform - What stage are they are? Do they have something already working or near release?
4.  Unique - are they the only one doing it and can it easily be reproduced.
5.  Would you use it and do you belive in it? This is a big one.
6.  Hype - Is there alot of Hype and internet activity around it like twitter youtube facebook etc
7.  Research - Research - Research.   Can't say this enough this is your best friend.  Twitter, youtube, facebook, google etc 
8.  Search for scam hack etc on forums.
9.  Read the ANN on bitcointalk forums.  Check out their slack and telegram accounts as well as the webpage
10.  Join some ICO alert groups.  Check them out and if they don't jump right out at you pass them by.
11. Find out everything you can about the development team
12.  Read the whitepaper or plan and roadmap.  It will tell you what the money is for.  Careful if they oversell their idea its a warning flag.
13.  Use ICO alert sites to alert you of upcoming ICO's.  https://www.icoalert.com/ is a favourite of mine.

Even joke ICO's can make you money.  Like UET or Useless Etherium Token.   https://uetoken.com/   The guy even tells you hes going to take your money and spend it on a new TV.  Yet people still blindly bought into the ICO.  The price even rose upto something like $58 before tanking down to $1.   $58!!!! for something that does nothing.  The volume was very small so it's not that bad but it is a funny example.


Another good example of one that will have alot of hype and people will buy into but it is likely a scam and is EROS.
https://eros.vision/
![Eros.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmSxP8Gc9xZ8zrXjw8ksiBjBCjoCpfWLpsBN3g2dpEvaoU/Eros.jpg)

The white paper is copied from another coin.  So that is a major red flag.  But there is ALOT of hype around this coin so people will blindly buy into it and it will likely be a nice profit if you dump it when it hits the market.  Or you could wait for the dump then rise again because people will buy back in when it starts climbing.  It will likely even go higher than the initial price.  But that is the risk.

Ok now for some serious ICO's.

Take Bitquence (BQX) for example.  Everything about the ICO looks fairly legit, I have done a reasonable amount of research and I like it alot.  I want what they are trying to achive and I want them to succeed.  They want to make a universal wallet so you only need one wallet for all your coins and it is all stored offline in cold storage.  I want that badly.  I can't keep track of all my wallets and seeds ( I can but I hate it).

I have invested a measly 4 eth in it.  You get the tokens immediatly.  There is still 5 days left to get in on this one.  Do your research.  Don't rely on what I am saying. 

![Bitquence.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmeZ7frG58knUqY1zo6yyhY6i9EeNHKqiZdMkUAnBkAxWY/Bitquence.jpg)

They are still paying 5000 tokens per eth and that will drop soon as they are about to hit their minimum goal.
Here is the link.
https://www.bitquence.com/tokensale/

And shameless plug if you really like the look of this ICO here is my referal linke for it.  It basically just gives me a couple extra tokens if you use it.

https://bitquence.tokenmarket.net/?aid=39qVR2pWR8yIrnd4XEIAhA 

I am by no means an expert in ICO's.  But I do know what to look for and how to make a call.  The main thing is do your own research.  There is no reason to rush in.  I follow most ICO releases and just watch the charts to see what happens.  I did this for around 15 before I was brave enough to invest myself.

I hope this guide was useful for even just one person as it took me a long time to understand what the deal was with ICO's.