ICO (Initial Coin Offerings) - Internet analogue of IPO: instead of shares of the company, tokens are issued - digital tokens. The release occurs on a specialized block-platform, for example Waves or Ethereum. Blocking is a chain of transactions built according to certain rules. Information in the chains can be rechecked, but can not be changed. Investors - platform users - buy tokens, paying for them with crypto currency - bitcoins or ethers, for example. Anyone can raise funds using ICO - the main thing is that the concept is liked by users. The value of the tokens is not guaranteed by anyone other than the company that issued them.
The founder of the NEO platform, which recently announced the return of funds to investors in connection with the banning of ICO in China, Da Hongfei was a guest guest, along with Patrick Dai, developer of QTUM, on the Unchained podcast, organized by Laura Shin Shin), the editor-in-chief of Forbes. The main topic of the discussion was the recent events in China and their potential impact on the crypto-currencies and the development of the blockbuster.
Literally BITCOIN (bitcoin) is a "bit" unit of information, a "coin" coin. In fact, bitcoin (official abbreviated BTC) is an electronic payment system (currency), which does not have a single information center, so the system does not have a single owner. You can say that the cue ball belongs to those who use them. By the way, most often in the network bitcoin is called just bits. Electronic crypto currency bitcoin was created in 2009 (development started in 2007), a programmer or a team of programmers with the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto (apparently the Japanese name).
Initial Coin Offering - the initial placement of coins (tokens). During the ICO, the project team sells digital tokens for crypto-currencies or fiat money to investors. Later, these coins can be used on the project platform as an internal currency or trade them on exchanges. Also, instead of ICO, the term "crowdsdale" (English - crowdsale) is often used.