However, with the past several months seeing ICO campaigns raise around $200 mln, a new danger is in town - the health of the Blockchain that underpins the entire operation.
“There are some serious issues that may occur, even with large campaigns, that may disable the entire Ethereum Blockchain,” KICKICO, a platform dedicated to helping projects launch ICOs without the associated risk, explains.
A hint of this ‘disabling’ already exists. During one week in June, which saw no fewer than three multimillion-dollar campaigns on Ethereum, a rush of investment transactions resulted in severe delays and volatility across the asset’s network.
Of these three campaigns, one of them - Civic - even chose to make investors wait in a nonlinear queue to avoid mad rushes.
In developing his platform, meanwhile, KICKICO founder and CEO Anti Danilevski hopes that Blockchain fundraisers will be able to compete with traditional options such as Kickstarter without fear of technical vulnerabilities.
“We consider all fiat-currency crowdfunding platforms to be our competitors,” he told Cointelegraph in written comments.
“Our main benefit versus them is cryptocurrency, which makes crowdfunding available for everyone worldwide, since Kickstarter and other big platforms limit projects from other countries and adds bureaucratic filters such as banks and payment systems.”
Danilevski’s platform, which will shortly launch an ICO of its own to raise funds for further development, is already functional. It uses smart contracts to allow (crucially) anyone to execute a campaign, with technical aspects covered as part of the service.
“A major problem is starting your own crowdfunding campaign, which is not easy on Kickstarter or any other fiat currency platform,” he continued.
“On KICKICO it is possible to start a campaign just with several clicks. We deal with all the technical parts, including smart contracts, by ourselves.”
Post Parity hack, security is everything
Such an open offering is daring in a market which like other areas of the cryptocurrency industry has seen its fair share of bad actors.
With ICOs in particular, security of funds and integrity of the parties raising them are a hot topic.
“We understand the seriousness of the security issue – people trust us with their money,” Danilevski acknowledged.
“At this stage we have agreements with several private companies which are performing a range of actions for scanning the platform for vulnerabilities. They will be ensuring the security during pre-ICO and ICO. After that our partners will be performing constant monitoring to keep all the investments streaming in the right directions.”
In an arguably under-regulated area of the economics sphere, reputation is everything for organizations controlling ICOs.
Last week’s hacking of Parity, a Blockchain project from Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood himself, showed how easy it is for even the most ‘trusted’ names to be undermined.
After more than $30 mln went missing, it was not the company itself that immediately protected users, but white hat hackers acting as vigilantes. Exploiting the hacking methods, individuals drained remaining Parity wallets to safeguard user funds.
Danilevski, therefore, is leaving nothing to chance.
“We are planning to have an additional partner, someone from the world’s leading experts on the matter [of security],” he added. “The more security professionals and layers of protection the platform will have, the better.”
Interested in what’s to come? Check out the latest trending ICOs with Cointelegraph’s ICO Calendar.
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