Since late 2017, it seems like the whole world has been scrambling to find the “next big ICO” to invest in. As we move further into 2018, it looks like the ICO hype might just be beginning to die down.
However, even though we have witnessed a significant decrease in the number of ICOs, and the value of Bitcoin over the past few months, it’s become clear that the best ideas are still drawing lots of attention from investors.
The Way ICOs Work is About to Change Drastically
The reality is, the days of anyone being able to throw together a whitepaper, whip up a landing page, and raise tonnes of money in a few days are quickly coming to a close – and that’s a good thing.
As we move into this new era of ICOs, it’s becoming clear that the poorly planned projects are being left by the wayside, while the best ideas rapidly rise to the top. From now on, it’s going to be the platforms that already have a working model and an established user base that attract the attention of investors.
Are Social Media Platforms Beginning to Migrate to the Blockchain?
You might have already heard that Telegram, the encrypted messaging app that boasts over 200 million users, raised so much money during their pre-ICO round that they canceled their public ICO. Their pre-ICO round involved fewer than 200 private investors – and it managed to raise a total of $1.7 billion.
As a result, the company no longer need to seek public investment and can move forward with building their platform. Similarly, platforms like Cryptokitties – the social media platform that lets it users collect and breed digital cats – has proved to be hugely popular amongst users. In fact, it has already received a surplus of $12 million in funding from big investors.
Social Media Platform ASKfm is the New ICO to Watch
ASKfm is an anonymous question and answer platform. What separates this platform from other startups who have decided to launch their own ICOs is that it has been building up its user base since 2010, and has since amassed a total of over 200 million users.
The main purpose of the platform is to enable its users to gain a better understanding of the topics they’re interested in while interacting with the community by anonymously asking and answering questions. Since its launch over 8 years ago, the platform has been a huge success. Approximately 600 million questions are answered every single month by users from over 168 different countries.
Now, it’s preparing to migrate to the blockchain.
The New Model Will Reward Users for the Content They Create
As it stands, most social media platforms, including the likes of the tech giants such as Facebook and Twitter, rely heavily on advertising revenue in order to turn a profit.
However, following the incidents such as the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal, many users have decided, quite understandably, that they don’t like being treated as a product, and are becoming ever-more sceptical of handing their data over to these large companies whilst getting nothing in return.
Platforms like Medium have already moved towards rewarding their users for their content by paying them based on how many claps their posts get – and it’s likely we’ll see many more platforms follow suit in the future. ASKfm is leading this movement by introducing a tokenization model in an effort to attract more knowledgeable users to their platform in order to improve the quality of the questions and answers.
What is ASKfm’s Long-Term Strategy?
Long-term, the team at ASKfm plan to transform the platform from a Q&A-based social network into a Massive Open Online platform that will deliver paid educational courses to its users. In order to do this, the platform will leverage blockchain technology to employ smart contracts that will release payments in the form of the platform’s tokens – known as ASK Tokens (ASKT) – when the asker’s conditions are fulfilled by the responder.
Considering ASKfm’s audience size, this could be the biggest migration to the blockchain we’ve witnessed yet. It’s certainly one to watch. There’s a significant chance it could even prove to be the most exciting ICO of the year.
