For those like me that's beginning...
Any experienced folks can share their thoughts if I'm looking at the wrong thing.
I just brought me some RentBerry so I'll answer the question in depth.
Rentberry – Long-term apartment rentals
ICOs are the equivalent of issuing penny stocks for real. Its an unregulated and shady financial practice. The difference is, a company created a currency and they are issuing their own currency to you that has no value, in exchange for something that actually has value...Ethereum. They are using the blockchain technology and the Etherum network to cause a transaction between users.
So you are not buying stock in the company, you don't own the company, you are buying future value in the company's currency.
A company will set aside a portion of their currency for currency buyers and then their organization and actual stockholders.
Majority of the companies are bullshyt, doing bullshyt, and ain't worth shyt. The websites are fugazi, they got fake people on them, stolen photographs of credible people or they have a team full of Eastern Europeans.
The legitimate companies will already have investment from Venture Capital firms and they will already have an existing product that has been on the market and have users. Every company will have a White Paper that will outline their business plan everything. You should read it.
A good ICO is something like Locipro or RentBerry, they have been around for at least 2 or 3 years. They have investment from venture capital firms and it is something that is innovative enough and have could potentially have a big enough platform to increase the value of the currency.
It is good to get in Pre-ICO during the time the company has bonuses and etc, for buying the currency. Once the ICO is launched, the exchange rate goes up and will keep going up each round. The company will have a minimum requirement that you will need to purchase to get tokens.
So, I wouldn't speculate anymore than 100 dollars on any of this shyt. You don't wanna be fukked up out here. Be careful of people that be in this shyt trying to sell you on being a multi-millionaire. They got connections in the tech industry and etc or they trying to make money off this shyt by generating media.
You will make your money back when you sell on the currency on the market. But it is kinda scary to see what will happen.