An ICO — an initial coin offering — is the first public sale of a new crypto token. A project creates a token, sets a price, and sells it to the public before the token starts trading on exchanges. Buyers pay with an established cryptocurrency or stablecoin and receive the new token, usually below the planned listing price. In short, an ICO is how a crypto project raises its first funding directly from the public — no bank, no venture fund, no exchange in the middle.
The idea is borrowed from the IPO, the initial public offering in traditional stock markets, but the mechanics are very different. An IPO sells shares through regulated exchanges and brokers. An ICO sells tokens through a smart contract on a blockchain, often to anyone with a wallet and an internet connection. That openness made ICOs powerful — and, in the early years, risky.
Most ICOs follow the same sequence. First, the project publishes its plan: the token's purpose, total supply, use of funds, and team. In the early days this was usually a whitepaper; today it is a docs site and a tokenomics page. Then the sale opens through a smart contract: buyers send payment to the contract address and it records their allocation. The sale may run at a single fixed price, or in stages with the price rising at each stage, rewarding earlier buyers with a lower cost.
When the sale ends, the token generation event (TGE) mints and distributes the tokens to buyers. After that, the token lists on exchanges and starts trading. Whether buyers can sell immediately depends on vesting. Some unlock everything at launch, so buyers can trade from day one. Others lock tokens and release them gradually, which slows early selling but makes buyers wait for their full allocation. Our guide to what a token presale is explains how the earliest rounds fit into this sequence.
ICOs existed before 2017 — Ethereum itself raised funds through a token sale in 2014 — but 2017 was the year the model exploded. Hundreds of projects launched ICOs that year, and fundraising ran into the billions of dollars. Anyone could launch a token, publish a whitepaper, and raise money from a global audience. For a brief period, ICOs looked like a faster, fairer alternative to venture capital: open to everyone, settled on-chain, free of gatekeepers.
The boom also produced the largest ICO ever. EOS ran a year-long token sale that raised roughly $4 billion, a record that still stands. But the same openness also attracted abuse. With almost no regulation and little due diligence, some projects raised money with no product, no team, and no intention of delivering. By 2018, regulators had stepped in, the market cooled sharply, and the free-for-all ICO era effectively ended. The model did not disappear — it changed shape.
People often use "ICO" and "presale" as if they mean the same thing, but there is a distinction. A presale is usually the earliest round of a token sale, before the main public sale — often to a smaller group, at the lowest price, sometimes with a bonus. An ICO is the main public sale itself. In practice the terms have blurred: many projects run a staged presale and call the whole thing their token sale, with no separate event labelled "ICO".
The $PHEW sale is a good example of the modern shape. It is a staged presale: Stage 1 is $0.01 per token, rising about 20% at every stage to $0.0516 in the final stage, listing target $0.258. Stage 1's tiered bonus runs +10% under $250, +25% at $250+, +50% at $1,000+, +75% at $2,500+, and +150% at $10,000+ — so $100 in Stage 1 buys 11,000 $PHEW. No vesting: 100% unlock at launch. The sale runs October 16 to December 31, 2026, accepting payment across 11 chains. See PHEW presale stages explained for the full schedule.
After the 2017 bust, the industry built two new variants to fix what ICOs got wrong. An IEO — an initial exchange offering — is run by a centralized exchange: the exchange vets the project, hosts the sale, and lists the token afterwards. Binance Launchpad popularized the model in 2019, and its early sales sold out in minutes. An IDO — an initial DEX offering — runs on a decentralized exchange instead, with the sale and first trading in a liquidity pool rather than an order book.
The trade-off is simple. ICOs are fully open and permissionless, but buyers carry all the due-diligence burden. IEOs add the exchange as a gatekeeper, which filters scams but also access — sales are often limited to the exchange's own users. IDOs sit in between: open and on-chain, but with the token immediately tradeable in a pool. Our comparison of presale vs ICO vs IDO breaks down the differences.
ICOs carry real risks, stated plainly. First, there is no guaranteed return: the listing price is a target, and the market may open below it. Second, early ICOs had almost no investor protection, and scams were common. Third, a token's value depends on the project shipping something people use; a token with no product behind it has nothing to support its price. Fourth, unlocks matter: with no vesting, every buyer can sell on day one, which can create heavy early selling pressure.
The checks before joining any ICO are the same ones that apply to any presale. Read the tokenomics: total supply, how much is sold, and what the team holds. Check whether the contracts are audited and whether the team is public. Look for a real product, not just a roadmap. And check the vesting schedule before you buy. Our guide on how to spot a good presale covers the full checklist.
Today's token sales look different from 2017. Most run on launchpads rather than a project-built sale page, which means standardized contracts, published tokenomics, and a built-in audience. Many use staged pricing instead of a single fixed price. And many combine the sale with a real product that is already live, so buyers can judge something that exists. The market has moved from a whitepaper and a promise to a working platform and a public sale.
Phew follows that pattern. The $PHEW presale runs alongside a live multichain launchpad where anyone can launch a token on a bonding curve, with a 0.02 HYPE launch fee and a 1% trading fee split 50% creator, 40% protocol, 10% buyback. Tokens raising $2,500 graduate to a DEX with liquidity locked forever. The presale itself is live at phew.pro/presale, with the full tokenomics published on the tokenomics page.
ICO stands for initial coin offering: the first public sale of a new cryptocurrency token, usually before it starts trading on exchanges.
Not exactly. A presale is usually the earliest round of a token sale, offered before the main public sale at the lowest price. An ICO is the main public sale. In practice the terms overlap, and many projects today run a staged presale as their whole sale.
It depends on the country. Some jurisdictions treat token sales as securities offerings and regulate them; others have specific rules or none at all. A legitimate project publishes its structure openly and tells buyers which rules it follows. Always check the rules where you live before participating.
Yes. The listing price is a target, not a guarantee, and the market may open below it. Tokens can also lose value if the project fails to deliver. Never spend money you need elsewhere, and treat every token sale as a high-risk allocation.
EOS ran a year-long token sale that raised roughly $4 billion, the largest ICO on record. It remains the high-water mark of the 2017 ICO boom.
Stage 1 is $0.01 with a tiered bonus of up to 150%, rising each stage to $0.0516 — and the stated listing target is $0.258, with 100% unlock at launch.
Join the presale