2025-08-30
ICO (Initial Coin Offering) is the core mechanism for blockchain projects to raise funds by publishing encrypted tokens. Its essence is to use smart contracts to achieve digital asset publishing and community incentives. For example, in 2014, Ethereum raised 31,529 bitcoins (about 18 million US dollars) through ICO and published 60.1 million ETH, laying the foundation for its smart contract platform. This model is being iteratively upgraded through technological innovation and regulatory adaptation in compliance platforms such as HashKey Exchange .
The core technology of ICO relies on standardized protocols such as Ethereum ERC-20. Taking ERC-20 as an example, smart contracts need to implement basic functions such as balanceOf and transfer , and initialize the total amount of tokens through _mint functions.
After investors send ETH to the contract address, the smart contract automatically distributes tokens. If the fundraising target is not reached, a refund mechanism will be triggered.
Token allocation directly affects the project ecology. Worldcoin's WLD token adopts a "community-led + lock-up period" model: 75% is allocated to users and ecological funds, 13.5% belongs to investors, 9.8% is used for team incentives, and the remaining 1.7% is a reserve pool. Its release mechanism is enforced through smart contracts: team and investor tokens are locked for 12 months and linearly unlocked for 24 months, and user tokens are circulated in real-time. This design balances short-term liquidity and long-term ecological construction.
Thailand launched its first legal ICO framework in 2018, requiring projects to publish through a licensed portal, perform KYC/AML audits, and limit trading pairs to seven mainstream cryptocurrencies. Hong Kong, on the other hand, requires exchanges to evaluate token securities attributes through the Virtual Asset Service Providers Ordinance. As a licensed platform, HashKey Exchange reduces compliance costs by 30% by accessing OKLink's on-chain Anti Money Laundering system to achieve transaction monitoring and address risk rating.
With the tightening of regulation, STO (Security Token Publish) has become an alternative to compliance. Unlike ICO, STO needs to be backed by physical assets (such as equity stake and real estate) and is subject to the supervision of SEC and other institutions. For example, Elevated Returns tokenized Thai real estate and raised $100 million through STO to achieve a balance between asset liquidity and compliance. HashKey Exchange plans to launch an STO publish platform to support traditional assets on the chain, which is expected to be launched in Q4 2025.
The essence of ICO is the product of technological innovation and regulatory competition. HashKey Exchange improves the compliance of token publishing to over 98% through smart contract auditing, on-chain Anti Money Laundering, and STO infrastructure, while retaining the technical advantages of blockchain and meeting the regulatory requirements of the Hong Kong Securities Supervision Commission. In the Web3.0 era, understanding the technical logic and compliance path of ICO is a key ability to participate in digital asset investment.