The cryptocurrency market is attracting so much attention that taking some part in it just because “everyone else is doing it” seems reasonable: who would reject the idea of turning their savings into investments with a 1500% return in a year? Well, Dogecoin owners have enjoyed this, and more, during the 2021 pump.
There are many ways to make money on cryptocurrencies. We wrote about trading, mining, staking, and investments. We also wrote that you can profit from quality information, indirectly, of course. Launching your own business venture is one of the means we haven’t covered so far. How to create an ICO? What are the steps to create an ICO? Do you need a separate blockchain to create an ICO coin?
This is what we are going to discuss right now.
How to create an ICO blockchain
Initial Coin Offerings is a fundraising event that gives investors a chance to support a promising business with a prospect of making profit in future. Coins that are sold during the ICO serve as company shares, so as the business grows, they become more valuable.
The reasons to launch an ICO are clear for both parties. The entrepreneurs gain the momentum to keep up their work; the investors hope to accumulate or sell their share as they see fit. It’s a win-win in the best-case scenario but there are no strings attached if the business venture fails.
How to create an ICO blockchain: fast & expensive
There are always consultants for any area of competence; ICO’s are not an exception. As you search for information on how to create an ICO on the Internet, you usually find the agencies that offer ICO Development services. They come up with descriptive articles and suggestions of all kinds, which, on the one hand, showcases their expertise and proves that an ICO is fairly complex to organize, on the other.
So, it’s up to you whether these agencies should be hired. Think of budget restrictions, whether the speed-to-market is crucial for your niche, and whether you can find a knowledgeable expert among your closest friends (or at least close geographically).
How to create an ICO blockchain: DIY approach
You can’t have it all if you are after a fast, high-quality, and cheap solution.
Sure, sometimes the start-ups that change the world are conceived and launched by a one-man band. Depending on the scale, it might take two months or five years, so you’ll need a team at some point. But let’s break it down in more detail.
Steps to create an ICO
Unless you are planning to launch something similar to BoringCoin, Gay Token, or Useless Ethereum Token, you need a clear plan. Here is what it may look like:
1. Business Analysis
A business analyst is basically a person who is good at quickly collecting and processing information about a given niche, so can hire one or become one.
Get to know who your competitors are. You’re lucky if the niche is vacant. Otherwise, you may choose to adopt the best practices from a successful market rival or partner with them, offer an enhancement to their product, etc.
This step also includes the study of the legal side. The regulation of ICO’s in your country may change dramatically while you’re in the process of planning it; if ICO’s are banned altogether (like in China) then your plans are, obviously, ruined.
2. Whitepaper
You will refer the future users and investors to it. As soon as it’s done, you can respond with ‘RTFM!’ to anyone who comes up with a frequently asked question. Isn’t it cool?
This document is necessary, first and foremost, for you. It is a single place where you put all the thoughts considering the project, how it is going to serve the community, why it is useful, what are its technical characteristics, and how you will develop it. If you can explain the essence of the project with 2-3 bold sentences, you surely are on the right track.
Call it whatever you like—whitepaper, blackpaper, yellowpaper, manifesto—just do it.
3. Website
There are two ways to do it: either buy a cheap pre-made template (e.g., at WIX) or buy a custom website, built from scratch. Both options require your time and dedication aside from money. Are you a web developer? Great, this step will be easy-peasy then.
How much will it cost?
Wix offers various subscription plans with varying prices: $4.5 to $24.5, depending on the services included. They will take care of hosting and certification issues, site analytics, and even some basic marketing.
As for the custom website, as you may have already guessed, the site development itself may cost about $5,000 plus any necessary expenditures on third-party services.
It is hard to imagine any business without a website, even if the latter is the most simplistic one on earth. Now that you have a nice homepage for your project, investors and users will see that you are serious about the whole endeavor.
4. Engagement
It is nice to have an Internet marketer friend who would coordinate social media campaigns, send some guest-blog offers, manage freelance copywriters, and build up your Internet presence in general: reddit, telegram, discord, twitter, instagram, youtube, etc.
If you start small, do it the old-fashioned way. Ask your friends if they find your idea interesting and viable, self-advertise the coin on the related forums… Reach out to as many people as possible. Get the feedback and accept advice. Perhaps you’ll re-imagine the whole idea, find partners and future teammates, and gain enough following to keep you emotionally involved and motivated financially.
5. The launch
This is the most difficult and potentially the most expensive part: you can’t create an ICO coin in two clicks, unfortunately. Experienced Ethereum smart contract developers ask for a pretty penny for their services, and not only do you need the contract for the token itself but for the Crowdsale ICO event, too. Add security audit expenditures to that and you get a beefy paycheck in the end.
Of course, Ethereum is not the only blockchain that allows users to create custom tokens. There are, for instance, Waves, Stratis, Hyperledger, and some younger platforms. Nonetheless, Ethereum remains the most popular one with an astonishing 83% market share as of mid-2021.
All things considered, the venture may cost up to $60,000.
6. The team
Don’t get us wrong, there is still a way to launch an ICO and pay zero. It is possible if you do everything yourself or rely on specialist teammates who willingly invest their time hoping that your idea will play out well. Each of the previous steps requires a specific skill. As a coin creator, you must take immediate part in the whitepaper writing.
As for the other roles, there better be:
- Business Analyst;
- Web developer and UI/UX developer;
- Internet Marketer;
- Smart Contract developer.
The list could be both shorter and longer, as needed. Dogecoin was launched by two people: they forked an existing blockchain and tweaked the code, built a basic website, and promoted the coin with quite mediocre marketing. Oh, by the way, you can choose to launch a brand new blockchain instead of issuing a token!
Create an ICO coin
If you intend to fork Litecoin or develop a digital currency from scratch, the steps to create an ICO would be different: you need a blockchain developer with enough experience to offer the community a genuinely useful and secure coin. That is going to be fairly hard, considering the saturation of the market, so be extra careful.
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