【双语】ICO到底是个什么东西？

Initial coin offerings are all the rage. Dozens of companies have raised nearly $1.5 billion via the novel fundraising mechanism just this year.Celebrities from Floyd Mayweather to Paris Hilton have jumped on the hype train. But don’t feel bad if you’re still wondering: what the hell is an ICO?

最近，ICO最近被炒得沸沸扬扬。今年，数十家公司利用这种新颖的融资方式筹措了近15亿美元。弗洛伊德·梅威瑟（Floyd Mayweather）、帕丽斯·希尔顿（Paris Hilton）等一众名人也纷纷押注ICO。你可能依然在疑惑：ICO到底是什么？没关系，我来告诉你。

The acronym probably sounds familiar, and that’s on purpose—an ICO does indeed work similarly to an initial public offering. Instead of offering shares in a company, though, a firm is instead offering digital assets called “tokens.”

这个词听起来很熟悉，确实如此，它是首次代币发行（Initial Coin Offering）的缩写，类似于首次公开募股（Initial Public Offering，IPO）。区别在于，ICO公司发行一种叫做“代币”的数字资产，而非股份。

A token sale is like a crowdfunding campaign, except it uses the technology behind Bitcoin to verify transactions. Oh, and tokens aren’t just stand-ins for stock—they can be set up so that instead of a share of a company, holders get services, like cloud storage space, for example.

代币发行类似于众筹，不同的是，ICO公司用比特币技术验证交易。而且，代币不是单纯的股票替代品，其持有者可以获得一些服务，比如云存储空间。

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