What Is an IDO? The Best IDOs to Watch Out For in 2022

If you are a regular on Twitter, you must have come across the myriad of posts strewn with #IDO. Everyone’s talking about it. Everyone wants a piece of it. 

What’s an IDO? And what’s the big deal? 

This article will get you on board with the latest crypto sensation. 

What is an IDO 

IDO is short for Initial DEX Offering. A new variant of ICO, it marks a project’s first crypto token offering to a decentralized exchange (DEX). 

Here, you lock your funds with a project in exchange for its native token that has yet to be launched. After the token generation event, the project airdrops the tokens to participants into their wallets. Along with that, the token is added to different liquidity pools on DEXs, where users can then exchange their tokens for other cryptocurrencies.

Why are IDOs popular 

IDOs are hosted on dedicated launchpads like UpLift DAO. While early-stage investment has for long been the arena of private investors, IDOs bring retail investors into the picture as well. Launchpads give the public a chance to claim tokens from promising projects at lower prices before they hit the market. 

IDOs are more than just a source of crowdfunding for projects. The key objective is to draw attention to and gain traction for the project. For this reason, most tokens come with a low initial market cap. This translates to lucrative returns for IDO participants, sometimes generating 10-100 times the IDO price. If you have been wondering what the big deal about IDOs is, now you have your answer. 

So, now that we have you hooked, let’s dive into some of the booming crypto sectors that offer the highest returns for IDO investors. 

1. Metaverse 

Tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and Meta are racing to plant their flags onto the metaverse. The industry is growing by leaps and bounds. Luckily, not just on the centralized side of the world. The crypto-metaverse arena is growing at a fast pace, fuelled by cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and DAOs. 

The Metaverse is touted as an immersive layer of the internet, sustainable with its own economy, jobs, infrastructure, business hubs, and entertainment stations. According to a report published by Grayscale, the metaverse will likely penetrate into every sector in some way within the next few years. The market opportunity is estimated at over $1 trillion in annual revenues. 

Web3, being an integral part of the emerging metaverse, holds a vast trove of opportunities for investors. The incredible growth of metaverse tokens like SAND, MANA, and AXS serves as a great example. 

2. GameFi 

GameFi took video gaming up a notch up with some incredible earning perspectives. What once was a hobby has turned into a profession for many, thanks to the new rush of platforms, fortified by state-of-the-art aesthetics, user experience, and incentivization mechanisms. 

Revenue from virtual gaming worlds is estimated to climb from ~$180 billion in 2020 to ~$400 billion in 2025. GameFi nurtures a new free-market economy that can have real-life value. Transactions inside a blockchain play-to-earn game are facilitated by crypto tokens, which can  be sold on both centralized and decentralized crypto exchanges.  

As a game grows and acquires new players, the demand for its tokens and NFTs increases to a level often out of reach for everyday players with low initial capital. This is why you need to get into a game early on. IDOs are a great way to acquire tokens from GameFi projects at a discounted price.

NFT4Play, one of the most anticipated play-to-earn games, launched its IDO on UpLift DAO recently, raising 200,000 BUSD. 

3. NFT marketplaces 

That brings us to our next hot sector — NFT marketplaces. The growth of the metaverse and GameFi has drawn worldwide attention to NFTs, even from crypto aliens! According to The Block Research, the trading volume of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) surpassed a whopping $13 billion in 2021. 

The new paradigm of games allows blockchain-verified ownership of in-game assets as NFTs. They can be traded, exchanged, or used on other interoperable platforms at ease. They are also now adopted across a wide array of industries including art, music, and sports. 

YouMinter, an easy-to-use NFT marketplace, launched its IDO on UpLift in December and generated a great reception, raising 450,675.02 BUSD. 

4. AMM DEXs

The role of decentralized exchanges in an industry set apart by its decentralized vision can’t be stressed enough. That explains the popularity of DEXs (decentralized exchanges). A Chainalysis report reveals that the number of DEXs doubled between Q1 2019 and Q3 2021, while the number of CEXs remained almost the same.

The rising popularity of DEXs over the past two years has a lot to do with the impressive growth of DeFi. From around $10 billion in July 2020, the total value received by DEXs grew to $368 million in May 2021. That is 3579% growth! The crypto industry’s rapid expansion calls for more DEXs with added features, functionalities, and blockchain support. 

UpLift hosted the IDO of Jumbo Exchange last month, raising  99,999 BUSD. It is the second AMM DEX on Aurora Network. The launchpad supports projects building on a wide range of emerging networks, including Aurora and NEAR. 

How to get started

There are a number of launchpads dedicated to different categories of projects and blockchains, such as Polkastarter, BSCPad, and DAOMaker to name a few. Launchpads like UpLift DAO step up the game, taking the best from the pioneering projects and addingwith some killer new features that ensure more representation. 

For starters, UpLift follows a community-based capital deployment model. Unlike many launchpads today, allocation is not based on tiers. It features a lottery-based token allocation system to allow a diverse set of participants. The stand-off period after each IDO ensures further representation.

UpLift has recorded significant growth since its launch in November 2021 for its democratic crowdfunding vision. It has over 2,000 unique token holders and 7,000 unique stakers as of now. Daily updates of its activities are found on all social media channels, Discord, and Telegram. Follow them to get the latest news on upcoming IDOs and other community events!