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1. Introduction
Among all attempts made to take advantage of the revolutionary blockchain technology in different disciplines, the area of finance seems to be the most successful to employ this technology so far. More specifically, cryptocurrencies owe their recent success to this very technology as it allows them to have specific functions that make the currencies attractive to a number of users. Such features include transparency, efficiency, accuracy, security, and convenience. More than $250bn of capital has been flown into the cryptocurrency markets as of June 30, 2018. The enormous success of cryptocurrencies has led to the creation of many additional applications implementing the currencies as part of their functions. Bitcoin, Ether (the cryptocurrency used in the Ethereum platform) and Ripple, the three major cryptocurrencies currently on the market, have been widely used not only as media of exchange but also as platforms for payment contracts and payment networks. The initial coin (currency) offering (ICO) has been gaining popularity as one of the alternative ways to raise capital for startups particularly since 2017 due to its convenient, speedy, inexpensive but efficient process, and it is becoming another success story for the blockchain technology.
In short, the ICO is a process used by startups or projects to raise funds from numerous investors by creating and selling new tokens. The main features of an ICO are its fast and inexpensive process, small investment acceptance and international accessibility by investors. The number of ICOs surged in the second half of 2017, and the strong trend has continued for the first half of 2018. The timing of this surge appears to coincide with the increased popularity in the cryptocurrency market, which is reflected by the pricing of the currencies. It is not unusual to have multiple ICO completions on the same day. The extreme example is 35 ICOs all of which concluded on December 31, 2017 (icodata.io). As of September 15, 2018, 1,801 ICOs have been recorded since the beginning of all cryptocurrencies, and almost all of them launched in either 2017 or 2018. ICO activities have been witnessed all over the world, with the countries of major supporters being the USA, Russia, Switzerland, Singapore and the UK. While ICOs are used in numerous industries, they are employed primarily...