What is an IEO?
An Initial Exchange Offering, as its name suggests, is a token sale that is conducted on the platform of a cryptocurrency exchange. Contrary to Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), an IEO is administered by a crypto exchange on behalf of the startup that seeks to raise funds with its newly issued tokens.
As the token sale is conducted on the exchange’s platform, token issuers have to pay a listing fee along with a percentage of the tokens sold during the IEO. In return, the tokens of the crypto startups are sold on the exchange’s platforms, and their coins are listed after the IEO is over. As the cryptocurrency exchange takes a percentage of the tokens sold by the startup, the exchange is incentivized to help with the token issuer’s marketing operations.
IEO participants do not send contributions to a smart contract, such as governs an ICO. Instead, they have to create an account on the exchange’s platform where the IEO is conducted. The contributors then fund their exchange wallets with coins and use those funds to buy the fundraising company’s tokens.
Token Launchpads
Binance pioneered this token sale method with multiple huge successes on Binance Launchpad, inspiring other market participants to begin developing their own IEO platforms as a result.
At the present time, we can count at least 15 exchanges which have either started supporting IEOs or announced that they are developing an IEO concept.
1. Binance Launchpad
The pioneering IEO platform started operation in 2017 and became mainstream in 2019. A lot of successful cases including Bread, Gifto, Bittorent, Celer, Fetch
2. Huobi Prime
Huobi was actually the next major exchange after Binance which managed to perform a successful IEO with the TOP Network project. They completed their first selective token sale event in a matter of seconds, with token prices surging by 250% immediately afterwards.
3. OKEx Jumpsmart
As one of the leading exchanges by trade volume, it’s no surprise that OKEx doesn’t want to be left out of the IEO trend. To ensure that they stay relevant, they haveannouncedtheir own IEO platform, called OK Jumpsmart. So far there isn’t any public information about upcoming projects, but we can be sure that they are looking closely for new prospective projects to work with.
4. Coineal Launchpad
Coineal is quite a big exchange with almost $700M daily trading volume and they’ve already jumped on the IEO train with their own Launchpad. Among already completed cases they have IPW Token, Levolution, and Kizuna Global Token. Another ongoing sale is Rebglo Token.
5. ZBG Launchpad
ZBG Exchange is a side project of another major exchange, ZB.com, which was a newcomer in 2018 but quickly reached the Top 10 on CoinMarketCap. Although they have been accused of faking their trade volumes, nevertheless, ZBG has completed two IEOs on their own launchpad with V Systems and Kamari projects.
6. BW Launchpad
BW.com is a core strategic partner of ZB.com exchange, a deeply-rooted crypto-exchange in the Asian market. BW Tokens Launchpad has supported three IEO projects to date, with two of them completed at the end of March 2019 (Blockbuster and V Systems) and one still ongoing (Grabity).
7. Coinbene
Coinbene was noticed talking about their own IEO platform already in 2018, but the first IEO launch was officially announcedin March 2019. Since Coinbene is often listed among the Top 10 exchanges and has a big community, we might expect another successful case in IEO field from them.
8. BGOGO Apollo
BGOGO is the first digital asset exchange with supernode listing authority. Now they are launching Apollo (IEO Launchpad) and haveannouncedtwo token sale events for ARM and X-Block projects.
9. IDAX Foundation
IDAX is a global digital financial service platform focusing on the needs of bitcoin traders with high daily trading volumes. IDAX has announcedtheir first IEO for ZeroBank project, which will take place in April 2019.
10. BitMax Launchpad
Bitmax is a relatively new exchange complete with a new platform for token sales. Their first IEO project called DOS Network hasn’t done much to excite the community, and already there’s a sense that these projects may struggle to sustain their price once exchange-listed. It’s early days for Bitmax Launchpad though, which may yet produce some winners.
Honourable Mentions
11. Bittrex International
12. Probit Launchpad
13. Latoken Launchpad
14. KuCoin Spotlight
15. Exmarkets Launchpad
16. Cobinhood
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