The amount of time required to complete the crowd sale objectives is a flexible determinant of a successful initial Coin Offering campaign, as one ICO may require 3 days and another may require 1 month or more to completely exhaust their tokens sales or achieve a their minimum cap. While it is almost impossible to relate Initial Coin Offering success rate with time frame given to campaign due to insufficient data, it is quite possible to deduce that amount of time needed to successfully execute an Initial Coin Offering campaign is of paramount importance.
Different parameters govern the length of a token sale campaign. These include:
The following examples highlight some achievements of the early initial coin offerings and their corresponding campaign time frame and the amount of money raised within that period:
Mastercoin (now Omni Coin) was the first initial coin offering on the bitcoin blockchain protocol, established on the 31st of July, 2013 with one month long of token crowd sales. 500 people participated in the token sales, raising a total of 5000 BTC estimated to be worth about $750,000 USD during that time.
Ethereum (Ether) blockchain is chiefly responsible for the development of the smart contract protocol and has built-in models for developers to maneuver their custom made DAPP for other platforms. Ethereum’s crowd funding ran through a 42 days’ period. They successfully raised over 31,000 BTC an estimated worth of over $18 million USD during that time with token distribution recorded at about 60 million Eth.
NXT is an independent blockchain of issuance and interchangeable digital assets. The token sales for the project lasted for about 51 days distributing 1 billion NXT tokens, with a total of 21 Bitcoins contributed, estimated at $14,000 USD at the time. With only a record of 73 participants taking part in the contribution and was thought to be responsible for low donation and a setback to the project. It was alleged that a single individual was able to organize the campaign.
DAO Project: The decentralized autonomous organization, a smart contract protocol on the Ethereum network which was designed to work as a community based investment fund management. It ranks amongst one of the most successful ICOs which pulled together an estimated sum of over $150 million USD within 28 days of the token sales. With over 1billion DAO tokens distributed the ICO recorded a success. Other than the fact that it was hacked later on, it would have remained one of the top ranking successful ICOs on the Ethereum blockchain.
Waves blockchain platform is another competitive system for token issuance on the rise which started its crowd sale on April the 12th, 2016 running through 49 days long token sales event giving waves token a successful crowd sale. An incentive bonus of 20% of token bought was offered to the supporters and investors to encourage participation on the first day of token sales. The total amount contributed was over $16 million USD equivalent of 30,000BTC at the time, achieved through the dispersion of 95 million waves token.
Stratis blockchain came up as an alternative to prior blockchain services providing composite services from other blockchain derivatives by giving users the opportunity to test-run their digitized token features. Incentives were also instrumental to the completion of the crowd sale. The token sale which ran for 36 days, showed a slow progress in its campaign at first which later developed a pace. Resulting in the total distribution of 84 million STRAT tokens and a contribution of over $598,000 USD in the conversion of 915BTC.
After the popularity of ICOs and their exponential usage within the internet environment, a new urge to create new projects drove the ICO conventions to a peak, whereby ICOs raised large sums of money within a short period of time. Some have even been known to have concluded their presale in a matter of days, while others took as long as two weeks to conclude their presale activity.
Bancor, a blockchain based liquidity network held its initial coin offering and was recorded at the time as one of the most outstanding crowd sales in the history of token sale convention. On the 12th of June, 2017 this ICO raised the sum of $150 million USD in just three hours. Filecoin in 2017 so far has topped the chart in ICO funds raised, raising a total of $257 million USD during its 27 days’ crowd sale.
Another important determinant of time scheduling is the availability of reputable personnel on the project advisory board. As the case was seen with Bancor, as the presence of Tim Draper, a reputable venture capitalist influenced the sales by a huge factor, to the extent of causing a malfunction in the Ethereum blockchain, slowing down transactions and consequently increasing the numbers of days for the ICO to conclude.
Furthermore, ICO’s could test-run their products on a smaller scale and in an open market before placing a time schedule, otherwise they might be disappointed. An example of such among many is Exhasta, a moon-shoot assisting project, failed to raise its soft cap and thereby closed up shop.
In conclusion, no definite time frame can be set for the token sale campaign to last. But ideal conditions can guide a range of values, so that the project can have maximum publicity and influence on the investor, thereby achieving its sales objectives. This range can be set based on the categories of sales event present in the ICO campaign. That is if the token sale event will be broken into a separate segment.
As a fine approach, some projects have thought it wise to assess the community support and investors potentials by dividing the sales into segments. This way, should they not meet the expected target(s) for the sales event, they have an opportunity to re-strategize by either increasing publicity outlets or hiring experts in various media, finance and investment fields to assist in the crowd sale events.
