A new Crypto Era

Since the advent of the “ICO” there has been a surge in new blockchain projects coming forth with a coinsale. Further, since Bitcoin and many Alts hit their all time high (ATH) in December 2017, the price of most exchange traded coins has tailed off.
For this reason the long term view of bitcoin/alt Hodlers is now under question as the price appreciation which propelled so many fortunes during the 2017 price pump, has now subsided in favour of a market caught in trading ranges.
Many hodlers have grown impatient or weary of the daily decline in their Net Asset Valuation (NAV) so are looking for other ways to supplement their crypto portfolio value. This is where the ICO market is looking increasingly attractive as returns of multiple times your investment are still possible and even commonplace.
The largest ICO’s such as telegram, Filecoin, Bancor or Bankera all having raised over $100m in their coinsale have presented early investors with an incredible opportunity to multiply their investment within a short time. Presale discounts and incentives such as bonus tokens or bounties give maximum reward to the earliest believers in the project — usually at a time when there is less certainty or crowd validation to rely on.
A major example of early investors who have hit it big would be Mike Novogratz who invested $500k in Ethereum at an early stage and is now sitting on $250m of ETH from that same investment. Now a 500x ROI is rare even in ICO terms, but the opportunities are still coming up even in a market that is seeing more and more ICO’s by the day.
Telegram, another major name was offering its presale investors to buy TON tokens at $0.33 whilst the main ICO sale was priced at over $2.50. Giving the early buyers over 7x their investment within just a few weeks. There was so much demand for TON that the presale was sold out in days and there was a huge minimum $ commitment to be approved to buy at presale prices. (TON raised $850m just in presale)
Now the main activity of many ICO investors is DD (due diligence) which is effectively vetting and investigating the potential of the project that you are considering giving your money. This is a time consuming and fairly mundane activity which requires a lot of reading and filtering the good from the bad. Hard to do if you also have a day job, family, or other commitments to juggle. Some investors take a more ‘scattergun’ approach to ICO’s thinking that if they buy into 10 or more (with just limited DD on each one) then the good ones will outweigh the losses and the investor will end up in a net profit position.
There is no right or wrong way to approach ICO investment, but my advice would simply be to DYOR (do your own research) and make sure you believe in the project. Then try to get an early allocation in a project that looks viable, has a good team, shows signs of community support and has at least a demo of their product available to see.
Ones to avoid — anonymous teams, no demo product, short or ‘cookie cutter’ whitepaper, ‘me too’ concepts which have already been seen many times, founders who retain majority of coins or a just poorly presented website with minimal info.
When it comes time to get your ICO coin, make sure to transfer it to your own wallet and choose your time to sell. Maybe hold some and sell some at the start of exchange trading, to average down your investment risk. If you believe in the project then it would make sense to keep some of your coins for a longer term investment and who knows it might be worth 500x someday!
Good luck out there and stay safe