what is ICO (initial coin offering ) ? what does it have to do with block chain ?

INITIAL COIN OFFERING (ICO)
Initial Coin Offerings can be considered as the cryptocurrency version of crowdfunding. It is getting more viral day by day. An Initial Coin Offering is an event that is being performed for a certain interval and only in that interval, investors are allowed to purchase tokens in exchange for available cryptocurrencies (mostly BTC or ETH). Initial coin offering (ICO) is basically an unregulated way to generate crowdfunding using various cryptocurrencies (fiat currencies in some cases) and is conducted by cryptocurrency organizations to raise the capital funds needed to execute the project. In an ICO, a specific part of the currently issued cryptocurrency is sold to investors in exchange for any legal tender or any other cryptocurrency. It can be related to token sale or crowd sale which includes taking investment amount from investors and availing them with some features related to the project to be launched.
How does ICO work:
Following are the steps explaining how exactly the ICO process works:
1.Pre-Announcement
In this step, an early announcement of the procedure is made among the crypto-currency investors i.e. Bitcoin Talk, Reddit and much more. To get into this step, the launcher of the project who is going to launch ICO prepares an executive summary as well as a presentation about the purpose of the project. After the preparation of executive summary and presentation, the company or launcher is provided with the first review about the project. This feedback can be positive or negative. According to it, the project is being changed slightly to make it favorable and the same changes are implemented in summary as well as presentation. Then again some valuable reviews are received and this cycle gets repeated again and again. When finally, the investor gets ready to invest after many adjustments, the agreement is made. gets the first feedback, which can be analyzed to see whether the project could interest investors or not. After the completion of this step, the perspective has to prepare a detailed prospectus about the project.
2.Offering
An offering includes an annunciation of the transaction. It involves the persons who’re going to be a part of the process. This offering proposal is designed and made by the company which is about to enter the ICO. It includes implications regarding the project describing the required amount of investments as well as the deadline of the project. The proposal also explains about the digital coins i.e. Tokens which are to be used at the time of crypto-currency exchange.
There are no particular standards for the value of one Token. It may be equal to one share or 10 shares or $1 or $10. The value of Token is decided independently for every project. The business proposal also involves all the related rights owned by a token of particular value. Every company decides its own standards for the Tokens and also a time duration after which the investor will be provided with the set dividends. In this proposal, that specific time duration is also described. It means that after a certain time, the prospective company will pay its accountability to the investor in the form of dividends. Just after signing on the proposal, the date on which the sale of Tokens will be started is broadcasted.
3.Running PR-Campaign
As the ICO process is not only for the big revenue companies, its aim is to attract small companies too. That’s why an informative, as well as thoughtful PR campaign, is just to run. In these campaigns, presentations are given at a various meeting held at distinct places. The duration of these PR campaigns is approximately of one month. The purpose to run such PR campaigns is to drag big as well as small investors and customers of each category. The main emphasis is given to Angel Investors who be a part of crowdfunding projects conveniently. The investment amount provided by these Angel Investors is known as Angel Investments.
At the end of PR Campaigning, the buy-sell process of Tokens gets initiated. As soon as ICO launching starts, the investors can be a part of crypto-currency exchange process.
4.ICO Sale
While launching the Tokens followed by the BlockChain process, two ways can be accepted:
a) The first way is that you may secure a bare minimum amount defined by the proposal and then launch the Tokens. After that, the Tokens can be divided among various investors in a certain ratio. The most common site which allows performing this is chronobank.io
b) Another way is to sell the Tokens at the time of crypto-currency exchanges. For this process to go ahead, pre-releasing the Tokens is essential so that trading may be done on the basis of one or many exchanges altogether. At this phase, ICO process follows the characteristics of IPO process.
When this ICO process gets finished, the company that issued Tokens starts to apply the all the decided terms and conditions on investors