What are ICOs?

[robertsmark]

ICOs, short for Initial Coin Offering, is the process of offering new cryptocurrencies for raising capital. Investors invest in tokens in anticipation of the price rising. Consequently, token issuers can raise capital for their project by selling those tokens. Simply put, ICOs are a form of crowdfunding by creating new crypto tokens.

ICOs were introduced in 2013, when Mastercoin, a digital currency, and communications protocol layer, raised almost $600,000 in funding through their first ICO. Mastercoin used the funding to create a Bitcoin exchange and transaction platform. With the introduction of ICOs by Mastercoin, many other projects, startups, and exchanges followed suit, and with that came the era of ICOs, where every other day, you would come across an ICO.

Source: https://mycryptoparadise.com/ico-vs-ieo-what-are-the-differences/

[Redix]

Unfortunately, ICO isn't popular anymore nowadays. Many people prefer choosing IEO right now, it seems more effective to use in initial sales for new crypto coins. Investors believe in IEOs, while in ICOs they are not interested anymore. I think it is because of many bad issues and bad histories in ICOs in the past.

[CryptoStar19]

At least in the US, ICOs have been banned because of the large number of related scams.