What are IEOs (Initial Exchange Offerings)

What is an Initial Exchange Offering (IEO)?

In cryptocurrency, IEO stands for Initial Exchange Offering. These are Initial Coin Offerings hosted on exchanges like Bittrex and Binance. Consider the following explanation from Binance’s Launchpad (an IEO platform):

An Initial Exchange Offering, commonly referred to as an IEO, is a fundraising event that is administered by an exchange. In contrast to an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) where the project team themselves conduct the fundraising, an Initial Exchange Offering means that the fundraising will be conducted on a well-known exchange’s fundraising platform, such as Binance Launchpad, where users can purchase tokens with funds directly from their own exchange wallet.

A good example of an IEO is BitTorrent token (BTT). BTT’s IEO was done on Binance’s “launchpad” (remember, launchpad is an IEO platform). The BTT IEO included a pre-sale round and then went live on Binance the next day.

Another good example is Bittrex’s RAID IEO.

Binance essentially had the first IEO, but Bittrex coined the term IEO (from what I can tell).

These types of products are not offered in the US at launch, due to SEC rules. Instead these are like an international alternative to ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) and DSOs and STOs (Digital Security and Security Token Offerings).

With that said, the Average American is out of luck when it comes to any sort of initial offering, because IEOs are only for international customers, DSOs and STOs are only for accredited investors, and ICOs are generally not done any more.

The root of both all the limitations is the same in all cases, that is, in the US the SEC has essentially put an end to the average American being able to invest in the early stages of coin offerings due to securities rules in the US.

With that said, US customers can still buy into these products after they launch (thus it ends up being much like it is with IPOs in the stock market for the average retail customer in the US).

TIP: IEOs are speculative investments, don’t get caught up in the hype… be smart about how much risk you are taking on any new crypto project.