4 ICO Stunts You Should Know

At the beginning of 2017, initial coin offerings (ICOs) were regularly raising amounts in the millions of dollars. At the same time, their white papers were full of promises about what new features and developments their news tokens would offer to the market. Eventually, some cracks began to show in the ICO model; in the most extreme of these scenarios, some ICOs weren’t even offering a real working product yet. This led to a kind of fatigue that made many investors wary of the torrent of new ICOs that, for a time, seemed to be popping up daily.

In a market where investors were increasingly cautious, companies had to resort to some extreme measures to get their attention. While ICOs mimic the process of an initial public offering (IPO)—an ICO is a way that entrepreneurs raise funds for new cryptocurrencies, like IPOs allow a company to raise capital from public investors— ICOs tend to be far riskier than investing in an IPO. At the same time, the ICO market has successfully redefined the idea of value. In 2017, there were 875 ICOs that raised over $6.2 billion. In 2018, there were 1,253 ICOs that raised over $7.8 billion. 

At the beginning of the ICO craze, many people recognized that there was an immense untapped wealth in blockchain technology, and investing in the right project was a rare opportunity for tremendous returns. The growing popularity of ICOs, combined with the limited liability of cryptocurrency founders, has led some companies to do some crazy things to drive their publicity. From feats of daring and danger to cringe-worthy public relations blunders, projects have gone to great lengths to get investors to contribute their coin.

ASKfm’s ASQ Protocol Reaches for the Moon

The ASQ Protocol—a venture by ASKfm network—is a decentralized infrastructure for publishing, storing, sharing, and monetizing digital content. ASKfm is an Irish company with its base of operations in Latvia and Ukraine.

After a tragic (and now infamous) Mt. Everest promotion that took place on Mt. Everest in the Himalayan mountains in 2018, ASKfm needed a promotion to match the drama of the previous event, and to demonstrate the resounding success that its blockchain platform had achieved thus far. The company decided on a literal “airdrop”—they launched a rocket carrying a thumb drive full of ASQ tokens and allowed people to hunt it down via geolocation.

The $100,000 worth of ASQ was launched in a Skyrora rocket. (Skyrora is a Scottish aerospace company). The ASQ tokens reached the stratosphere and could then be found littered across the Scottish highlands.

Savedroid Sacrifices Its Image for a Lesson Taught

Savedroid is a German company that launched an ICO to promote and fund their AI-based cryptocurrency savings platform. Savedroid’s platform lets users incorporate savings and investment goals automatically into their portfolio experience. Perhaps it would be more popular if its leadership hadn’t decided to run a poorly-worded marketing campaign at the worst possible moment.

After a successful pre-sale and ICO, Savedroid founder Yassin Hankir decided that it was an appropriate time to replace the project’s website with a landing page that said only, “And It’s Gone.” The stunt was supposed to promote wallet safety and investing only in responsible ICO projects, according to Hankir. But in actuality, it scared the living daylights out of investors, who suddenly believed it had all been an elaborate scam. Even though their funds were untouched, many refused to trust the company even after the fiasco had been explained.

McAfeeCoin… and McAfee Bucks?

Count on John McAfee to make an appearance on this list with what is likely one of the craziest ICO attempts witnessed in recent times. The former antivirus magnate is now the technology industry’s crazy uncle; the McAfee Coin ICO was just one antic in a long list of cryptocurrency stunts. The first red flag for investors was that McAfee wanted to capture China’s market, but he used provocative language in the whitepaper that could be read as a direct challenge to the country’s financial authority. In a country where ICOs are kept under a strict watch, McAfee was off to a poor start.

According to the original whitepaper, there were three ICOs planned between 2016 and 2019, the total of which would raise $1 billion. There would also be two different tokens for sale and even a social network. The ridiculous nature of the funding goal was matched only by the project’s haphazard components. Then, to cap it off, the CEO at that time, Yale ReiSoleil, publicly tweeted that the ICO was unnecessary and could be accomplished privately to the same result. After many investors fled, McAfee then tried to salvage the idea by printing and releasing paper McAfee Redemption Units. (The rest is history.)

On March 5, 2021, McAfee was indicted on cryptocurrency fraud. Federal prosecutors have accused both McAfee and his advisor, Jimmy Watson, of orchestrating a “pump-and-dump” scheme. Allegedly, McAfee used his popular Twitter account to highlight certain cryptocurrencies, making false and misleading claims about the prospect of their success. After buying huge amounts of inexpensive cryptocurrency altcoins, McAfee would promote them online with “false and misleading endorsement tweets.” This would artificially inflate their market prices; McAfee would then sell near the top, usually pocketing a hefty profit.

The Bottom Line

Cryptocurrencies and ICOs handle billions in value simply because there are enough people who think the same way. This collective belief means doing things such as turning up to a forest in Scotland or the peak of a mountain, willing to search through debris for a device the size of a thumb.

Because of the hubris and fight for attention, it’s unlikely we’ve seen the last of these foolhardy publicity stunts.