Part of the reason I started this was because I wish I had been running this site and researching before STEEM launch :).

ICOs or Initial Coin Offerings are upcoming projects that plan to, or are actively raising funds for their project. I will also share mining projects. It's difficult to judge projects and decide how to choose. Investing in ICOs is risky, and if it's something of interest the best thing you can do is get informed. Well recently I, @creationlayer, found Stratis, it was one of my first ICOs. It did well, but I spent a lot of time researching. (it's already closed and on the market, so I'm not suggesting you buy). I figured if I could continue this research and share it, maybe others would at least learn more about new projects and if you do plan to participate you have the information you need at http://icointel.com. For transparency the site is a free service and not backed or funded by any project besides my own payment for the domain name, and the information is also independent. You can check the site for countdown timers.

p.s. I know this is a lot of information at once, I did this research in a few days, in the future it will be one at a time.

So here are 9 of the biggest upcoming ICOs (+1 steemit superstar project). Please do your own research

Blockpay (Aug 20th)

I just found out about the great project Blockpay on chat which has been doing cool things for steemit. Can't research it all right now, so do your own, but big plug to them for adding SBD.

Article about project: https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@kencode/blockpay-being-rolled-out-in-de-fi-is-ru-tu-cn-ca-and-us-so-far

URL: https://blockpay.ch/newsroom/investor-relations/

Hong Coin

URL: http://www.hongcoin.org/

icointel analysis:Hong Coin is billed as a post DAO organization, rather referred to as DO, or decentralized organization (explanation of a DO: https://twitter.com/hongcoins/status/757497794126946304). This means that instead of having an autonomous engine for voting, they use a board to directly decide on investments. Obviously, this mitigates some of the disaster potential of the DAO. The coin functions as an asset/contract in the Ethereum wallet, and a testnet version is available: http://www.hongcoin.org/get-test-coins. Their diagram of how it works is quite complex:

Basically you’re investing in a fund, like any other fund. The team interviews projects and decides on their ability to succeed. If they can pick successful investments, than there’s potential for returns. It would function like any venture capital firm however with some community involvement. The success of the project lays on the “management team”, and their ability to fund successful entities. As venture capital, and speculative investment in companies is very difficult and many projects are flops there’s a high potential the fund will not be able to generate sufficient profit. Hence, I am skeptical of this investment solely based on the numbers game of investments, and the success of returns. However, I do feel like it’s an investment in an ICO inside and ICO, where the portfolio is hand picked. Their code base is minimal, but credit for posting something. It is a basic defined ethereum contract. If you place enough trust in this entity facilitating the picks of companies, than you can believe in long term success. If not, then there’s your answer.

Description: HONG, a decentralized organization built on the Ethereum blockchain and maintained by human participation in the spirit of “Man and Machine Teaming”. This spirit is enforced through publicly verifiable smart contracts enabling token issuance to its investors to its investors and putting collective voting power in their hands. There is a team supporting daily operations and portfolio management for the HONG community. Using this design, HONG can reach the highest level of performance with unprecedented levels of security, manageability and transparency.

Announcement Thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1162392.0
Blockchain/Technology: Ethereum Smart Contract
mining?: no
Slide Deck/White paper: https://medium.com/@hongcoin/hong-coin-a-post-dao-organization-on-blockchain-cf88605cede5
Github: https://github.com/hongcoin
Team: Isaac Mao, chief architect
Social Media:
slack: http://slack.hongcoin.org
Twitter: https://twitter.com/hongcoins
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HongCoins
Telegram: https://telegram.me/joinchat/BXzlWT-Eimi_KjCVYAGUtw
Medium Blog: https://medium.com/@hongcoin

Name: Decent

URL: http://sale.decent.ch/

icointel analysis: First and foremost decent has a strong, large and diverse team. Their goal is to create an anti-censorship platform for social media, and other use cases. The project actually has great presentation. However, the space is very crowded with projects like MAID, STEEM, SYNEREO, LIBRARY and others. It’s going to be hard to differentiate and compete if any of these projects truly fulfill their vision. This project seems poised to be a fast mover, and ideally can get to a launch sooner than later. Overall the concept is solid, but a code base is lacking, and with a large scale project that promises so much functionality and innovation it’s hard to judge without code. Still with this solid team, it seems there’s great potential. This should be approached with some skepticism as their vision is large but their follow through is not yet established. If they can be the dominant force in this space, the project is huge and has a high upside, but so many times before we’ve seen great teams promise to fulfill this niche, and get bogged down in technical hurdles. There’s great opportunity in this open space, but competing with MAID for instance, which is finally producing some results may push the overall project by the wayside.

Description: DECENT Software Sale is a one-time opportunity to become a basic element of Blockchain driven decentralized future of media. Join the digital revolution and help us to create the independent publishing platform for everybody around the world.The wider token distribution we make, the larger decentralized trust we can build. DECENT platform is devoted to the vision of privacy and security, but this can be achieved only with your participation. With each purchase you influence the future tendencies of the world we live in. Let’s make it great together!

Announcement Thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1162392.0
ICO Terms:
Internal Funding:1,000,000 DCT
Promotion Bounties 3,000,000 DCT
Pre-software Sale Marketing 35,000,000 DCT
DECENT Foundation Funding Round Levels

Blockchain/Technology: DECENT is an autonomous Type I Decentralized Application (Dapp) enabling digital content publishing.
mining?: n/a
Slide Deck/White paper: http://decent.ch/decent-whitepaper.pdf
Github: n/a
Team: http://decent.ch/about/
Social Media:
Slack: https://decent-slack.herokuapp.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DECENTplatform
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DECENTplatform/?ref=hl
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/decent-ngo-
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnE-FABsvmnbbfkzNzwNDtg?guided_help_flow=3
Google plus: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+DecentCh/posts
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/decentplatform/

deCLOUDS

URL: https://www.declouds.com/

icointel analysis: The whitepaper is very vague, and the presentation on the website makes it difficult to grasp the concept. It is another play at a decentralized exchange. The upside is the Github is quite beefy, and a lot of work has been put in. Take a look at the Github description, and the amount of code made. It’s somewhat of a sleeper project, but with the code backing it up, and the documentation there, it actually has a chance to have a successful launch. However, the space is crowded, for instance open ledger. The real large claim is pegs to precious metals, but as a detached instrument not backed directly by a physical storage means the exchange is symbolic and not necessarily significant. The long-term success of the project seems to be the uptake of actual institutions and companies that would use the platform to secure assets. There are numerous exchanges for cryptocoins, and many plays at decentralized exchange. The code base still lingers, and gives backing to the project, even though the white paper and presentation is significantly lacking technological clarity.

Description: deCLOUDs is a decentralized cloud-based crypto-platform for issuing, exchanging and trading assets and custom tokens on a blockchain using smart contracts. Our priority is the deep integration of the DeClouds platform with main precious metals: Platinum, Gold, Silver and Palladium. https://www.declouds.com/ (source)

Announcement Thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1552176.0
ICO Terms: https://ico.declouds.com/
Blockchain/Technology: n/a
mining?: n/a
Slide Deck/White paper: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8VJa9S_WxSSSHJhN0o0QkVPN1E/view
Github: https://github.com/ortutay/decloud
Team: https://www.declouds.com/ (click team)

Social Media:
Slack: https://decloudscom.slack.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/decloudscom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/decloudscom
Medium blog: https://medium.com/decloudscom

Singular DTV

URL: https://singulardtv.com

icointel analysis: While the project has a huge goal, and revolutionary description, monetizing content is a difficult business. People are currently so used to getting content free whether it’s youtube or torrents. The main thing that gives this project a boost is it has partnerships with the consensys juggernaut, and evolution media. The success will be determined by the quality of content created by the initial content producers. It’s still unclear if users are willing to pay for content, and the ICO distribution is not ideal, giving a large chunk to founders and content creators, and not a majority to backers. It has big backers, and may have a successful raise, but price long-term is unclear at best.

Description: SingularDTV (S-DTV) is creating inspiring and thought provoking entertainment for the most discerning thinkers around the world. We are an Ethereum-based production and distribution platform, creating broadcast quality original film and television content initially focused on nonfiction and the science fiction genre. SingularDTV will disintermediate traditional media production and distribution by applying decentralization principles to an industry currently reliant on obfuscating and monopolistic practices. At its core, SingularDTV’s embedded, immutable and transparent accounting practices will restore trust and confidence to Creators: securing the path for truth and freedom of expression!

Announcement Thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1562338.0
ICO Terms: https://www.reddit.com/r/SingularDTV/comments/4so6qz/the_singulardtv_token_sale_launch_ama/
Blockchain/Technology: Ethereum
mining?: no
Slide Deck/White paper: https://singulardtv.com/resources/default/pdf/SingularDTV%20CODE_Summary%20Overview.pdf
Github: n/a

Social media:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SingularDTV
Medium blog: https://medium.com/@SingularDTV
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SingularDTV)
Team: https://singulardtv.com/the-team

Golem Project

URL: http://golemproject.net/

icointel analysis: This project fulfills a needed sector. Decentralized super computing could be a huge business. As the crowd sale approaches we will have to see if more information on the code base, and structure comes out, but the marketing is superb, and there is a solid team backing it. There is a huge upside with the project, the project states there is an alpha available for people to get involved with if they join slack. Worthwhile to see how far along they are.

Description: Our aim is to use any personal computer to do jobs that are done today by servers, computing farms or supercomputers. The ultimate Golem Net will be the truly decentralized Web, where the combined power of user’s machines will deliver all the hardware resources they would ever need. The Golem Project is a work in progress. source: http://golemproject.net/

ICO Terms: https://blog.golemproject.net/golem-network-token-gnt-sale-220c2a732f9
Blockchain/Technology: Ethereum smart contract system
mining?: n/a
Slide Deck/White paper: http://golemproject.net/doc/GolemNanopayments.pdf
Github: https://github.com/imapp-pl/ethereum-contracts
Team: http://golemproject.net/ (Click Team)
Social media:
Slack: http://golemproject.org:3000/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/golemproject
Blog: https://blog.golemproject.net/

GNOSIS

URL: http://gnosis.pm/

icointel analysis: gnosis is a competitor, one might say, to augur. However, there are a lot of particulars in prediction markets which could make or break a project. Augur seems to be on schedule to launch faster, but gnosis has a solid team, presentation and I believe there needs to be two competing products. The specifics of prediction markets, like how decisions are calculated, the oracle solutions, fees, and other factors make a huge difference. We may have one project win in the long-term, or multiple projects like multiple exchanges. Although there is not a live ICO, it’s a project to watch closely. It’s a disappointment there is not a Github to see how far along the tech is.

Description: Are you interested in creating own events, fund own markets or start your own prediction market skin? Then our management software is for you. We allow you to create arbitrary events to make predictions on any information like, who becomes the next president of the United States or what will be the stock-price of Apple on date X. To resolve events, we offer a wide range of oracle solutions to make this process simple, fast and secure. Once events are created, one can create markets based on events and fund them as a single investor or start a crowdfunding campaign to share the risk. Try the endless possibilities now. source: http://gnosis.pm/

Announcement Thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1529098
ICO Terms: n/a
Blockchain/Technology: Our software runs on the decentralized Ethereum network using Smart Contracts. Ethereum allows censorship resistant execution of smart contracts, which secures users as well as market makers on our platform and makes our software globally available.
mining?: n/a
Slide Deck/White paper: n/a
Github: n/a
Team: http://gnosis.pm/ (Click Team)
Social media:
slack: http://slack.gnosis.pm/
Medium blog: https://medium.com/gnosis-pm
Twitter: https://twitter.com/gnosisPM
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Gnosis.pm/

Antshares

URL: https://www.antshares.org/en-us/

ICOicointel analysis: Antshares is looking to tokenize digital assets like a lot of other companies. It’s current advantage is it’s appeal to the Chinese audience. The ICO round has done well, and it’s possible that a play on tokenizing digital assets with a good interaction with both ends of the planet is a big success. The code base is extensive, and very fleshed out. The project has positive momentum, quality production in development, and a very strong team. While the space is very crowded, it still has not been claimed. Currently one of the main plays in this space is OMNI. There’s a lot of positive signs with this project, and with a solid white paper, and work towards uniting communities may prove a successful launch.

Description: Antshares is a decentralized and distributed network protocol which is based on blockchain technology. People can use it to digitalize assets or shares, and accomplish some financial business through peer-to-peer network such as registration and issuing, make transactions, settlement and payment.

Announcement Thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1541424.0
ICO Terms: https://www.antshares.org/Blog/Details/21
Blockchain/Technology: Byzantine Fault Tolerance Blockchain shift from Bitcoin consensus (https://www.antshares.org/Files/A8A0E2.pdf)
mining?:
Slide Deck/White paper: https://github.com/AntShares/AntShares/wiki
Github: https://github.com/AntShares
Team: https://www.antshares.org/
Social media:
Slack: https://antshares-slack.herokuapp.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/antshares
Twitter: https://twitter.com/antshares
Blog: https://www.antshares.org/blog
Weibo: http://weibo.com/login.php

FirstBlood

URL: https://firstblood.io/

icointel analysis: There’s a lot of hype around this project. It’s pitched in multiple languages, and has great marketing. The gaming space is a huge sector that is mostly untapped by cryptocurrencies, except for direct purchases like steam. Competitive gaming is huge, as one can see simply by the view counts on twitch.tv. Their novel approach to voting with the voter pool and witnesses, means direct integration is not necessary and it could work for a wide array of games.

Description:Firstblood is a new decentralized eSport gaming app. It’s open source to keep transparency.The app is autonomous, decentralized and fully automated.-autonomous: The cryptocurrency Ethereumallows for the creation of smart contracts that run business logic autonomously in theblockchain. These smart contracts can be used for fast, secure and reliable processingof results and rewards from competitive eSports matchplays.-Decentralized: PeertoPeer (“P2P”) decentralization allows skill based competition without reliance on payment processors, reduces operational regulatory burdens, and protects against organizational corruption such as fraud and embezzlement.– Fully automated: Each match outcome will be automatically verified by two groups: Witnesses, and/or the Jury Voting Pool (“JVP”). Witnesses are people running the automated Witness node software that verifies and reports game results. Payouts will be rewarded to the winner based on player reports and Witness checks.The crowdsale that will start in September will be used to fund the app to get started in the market among players.FBT token is essential to the the app ecosystem. It will be used to play games, host tournaments, vote and claim referrals. The app will have also use reputation system.Firstblood will be a deskto app. (source https://firstblood.io/)

Announcement Thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1543891.0
ICO Terms: n/a
Blockchain/Technology: Ethereum
mining?: n/a
Slide Deck/White paper: https://github.com/firstbloodio/white_paper/blob/master/FirstBlood%20White%20Paper.pdf
Slides: https://docsend.com/view/fzpxk6y
Github: https://github.com/firstbloodio
Team: https://docsend.com/view/fzpxk6y (slide 19)
Social media:
Slack: http://slack.firstblood.io/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/firstbloodio
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/10839777

Metaverse

URL: http://ico-en.viewfin.com/index-en.html

icointel analysis: Metaverse is a huge project out of China. It’s pitched as a complete overhaul from scratch of Ethereum. It utilizes what they call cross chain vms, which allows cross chain transactions. The backing is huge, and the project has great upside, but the technical hurdles are high. If they can deliver sooner than later is unclear. The Ethereum launch came with working code. The research and time it will take to develop this technology may cause stagnant growth even with initial returns, until future releases happen. This would be a huge success if it ships, but we don’t know when, and we don’t know how far along they are. Hype alone can drive returns, but long-term this coin may suffer before it produces profits.

Description: Metaverse is a decentralized platform of smart properties and digital identities, based on public blockchain technology. It is initially developed and supported by development team from Viewfin. Once reaching maturity, the codes of Metaverse will be published on github (https://github.com/ViewFin/Metaverse). source: (http://ico-en.viewfin.com/white-paper-en.html)

Announcement Thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1577552.0
ICO Terms: http://ico-en.viewfin.com/ico-rules.html (chinese use translate)
Blockchain/Technology: PoW Mining, Ethereum complete overhaul with crosschain vms.
mining?: GPU Mining Scheme
Slide Deck/White paper: http://ico-en.viewfin.com/white-paper-en.html
Github: https://github.com/ViewFin/Metaverse (description only)
Team: n/a

Thank you for reading, always do your own research!